


Invisible Circus

by tigs



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-13
Updated: 2004-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigs/pseuds/tigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron knows what he's fighting for, even if no one else does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This is proving to be an experiment for me. Somewhat inspired by the speculation that was running rampant after PoA about Ron as betrayer, but with a twist (because I love Ron, and because I love Ron, I must cause him the greatest amount of pain possible).

Title: Invisible Circus (1/?)  
Author: Sarah  
Summary: Ron knows what he's fighting for, even if no one else does.  
Disclaimer: Not mine. No way, no how.

AN: This is proving to be an experiment for me. Somewhat inspired by the speculation that was running rampant after PoA about Ron as betrayer, but with a twist (because I love Ron, and because I love Ron, I must cause him the greatest amount of pain possible).

 **Invisible Circus**

Four steps into Knockturn Alley and Ron Weasley is already tugging his worn jacket more tightly around his large frame, hands in pockets, eyes to the ground, so as not to meet anyone's gaze. The air is cool, clammy to his skin, and tastes bitter with the residue of dark magics he wished didn't exist.

He wants to spit, to try to clear the taste from his mouth, but he swallows instead.

This is who he is now, he reminds himself. This is who he must be.

One of his eyes is bruised nearly shut, there is dried blood edging both of his nostrils, and there's the raised shape of his mother's handprint on his left cheek, red and angry looking against pale skin. His bottom lip is split and swollen, damaged by the guard's fist as Ron had made his escape. He winces as he probes at it with his tongue.

As he walks, he closes his eyes, drawing in a deep breath, but even though it's only for a moment, he stumbles over the uneven cobblestones on the path in front of him and weaves, bumping into a passing witch. She's smaller than he is, of course, hunched and gnarled, with thin, scraggly gray hair hanging down from beneath the wrinkled hat that is shoved down onto her head.

His first instinct is to apologize to her, so he does, stumbling over the words. Her eyes are narrowed and glassy looking, but then she seems to recognize him because her expression lightens into a… smile? Her lips are curved, loose and nasty, showing gums devoid of most teeth.

"Young Weasley," she lisps. "Finally seeing the light, I hear."

Ron closes his eyes again, for a single, pained instant, but when he opens them, he's looking as alert as he can.

"I did, I am," he says and as he says the words, he wants to throw up. He wanted to run to the nearest nook or cranny—and on Knockturn Alley, there are plenty of those—and empty his stomach of everything he's eaten in the past day, during his entire lifetime even. Instead, he smiles. Sourly, he knows, but that's right, too. It fits who he is now, who he must be.

The witch cackles, drawing a few disinterested glares from those around them.

"Well done," she continues. "Well done. You'll be taking after that smart brother of yours, then. He was a good one, Percival was. A smart one, so much potential. It was such a shame when he—"

Her eyes narrow as she breaks off and suddenly she's looking beyond him, reaching out to him with one disfigured hand even as he evades her grasp.

"But we can expect great things from you," she continues. With her other hand, she reaches towards her own face and taps at her eyeball; Ron can hear the soft _clink clink_ of the long chipped nail against glass. "I can see it in your future. Great things."

She reels away from him then, conversation abruptly at an end, and Ron watches her go; she weaves as she walks, back and forth, back and forth, and he suddenly wonders if he was the one to bump into her at all. As he turns back in the direction in which he was going, he realizes that there are others who are watching him now, him and his too apparent interest in his surroundings, so he ducks his head again, quickly, and continues on his way.

There are unspoken (but universally known) rules for those who live down the Alley: don't notice anything, don't care about anything, and don't tell anyone anything. Unless someone makes it worth your while, that is, because everything has a price.

Everyone has a price. The world, Ron knows, believes him to be a living testament to this.

Five blocks further down Knockturn Alley, two over on one of the dark and twisting side streets, three more up another side street, then around the block just to make sure that he isn't being followed, and Ron finally reaches the building where he's let a room.

It's not much, but for two sickles a week, he hadn't been expecting anything more. The building sags towards him as he steps closer, leering at him with its cracks in the outer plaster, broken glass in two of the windows on the bottom floor, and boards over at least two others that he can see. It's gray and dirty, like everything else in this godforsaken alley, but now—he shudders—it's home.

He steps up to the front door, looks for a bell, and then raises a fist to knock on the worn door. Before he can, though, a look hole opens up and a wizard of Tom (of the Leaky Cauldron's) stature is standing there, peering suspiciously at him through squinted eyes.

"What do you want?" the wizard hisses. Then, more suspiciously still: "You, you. I know you."

Ron blinks. He swallows again and thinks randomly that the world suddenly doesn't taste quite as foul any longer. He's getting used to it. He doesn't want to get used to it.

He takes a deep breath, resists the urge to smile, as any normal, civilized human being would when greeting another, and says, "Ronald Weasley. I've let a room."

The eyes widen and the look hole closes just as suddenly as it opened. He hears bolts being drawn back, locks unlocking themselves, and then the door swings open, creaking as it does so. The landlord—for that's whom Ron assumes he's talking to—gestures for him to come in.

"Mr. Weasley," he hisses. "A pleasure. An honor. Your brother was… an inspiration."

Ron nods. He tries to look sympathetic, like he agrees, but maybe he's not successful because the landlord eyes him up and down, gaze trailing over Ron's ragged clothing, over the patched coat.

He only says, "First and last weeks' rent up front, that's what I ask, Mr. Weasley."

Ron's hand goes back into his coat pocket and comes out with four sickles; the coins are still warm from the death grip he's been giving them since he ran from the Ministry two hours before, executing his carefully planned escape. He drops them into the landlord's hand and watches the man's face light up. The man, in turn, plucks a dirty set of keys from his own pocket and drops them into Ron's outstretched palm.

"Third floor up," the man says. Then he turns his back on Ron and walks to a desk piled high with papers and parchment and a small sack of coins, to which he adds Ron's own. There are cubbyholes behind the desk, for the owl post, and Ron wonders briefly if Ginny is taking care of Pig like he'd asked her to.

The floorboards creak underneath his feet as he walks to the staircase that stretches up in front of him. With a sigh, he starts climbing. The third floor is five sets of stairs up and he's panting by the time he reaches the landing. He walks to his door, his feet dragging across the thin carpet on the floor, and he fits the key to the lock. It wiggles out of his hand, turns itself, and then the door swings open.

It's worse than the Burrow ever was, Ron decides as he peers cautiously inside, but he's long since passed the point of caring. Namely because it wouldn't matter if he did.

He has a job to do and he's going to do it.

He walks to the bed, which fills most of the main room, and sits down gingerly on its edge. He slouches as he pulls a wand out of the pocket of his jacket and points it at the door, muttering a locking charm, and then casting the wards he needs to cast to keep himself safe. Afterwards, as the wand drops to the floor in front of him, he lets his head fall to his curled fists and he sobs.

Just once, because the new Ronald Weasley doesn't cry.

He's undercover now, he reminds himself, and undercover spies masquerading as traitors don't get to have cracks in their façades.


	2. Part 1

It takes him 20 minutes to walk from his apartment house to the _Rusty Snitch_ ; it takes him another ten for him to actually work up the courage to walk through the front door.

He stands across the street from the pub, hidden in the shadows of the doorway alcove, dark and musty and filled with cobwebs and yes, spiders, but those aren't what finally drive him from his spot. It's the voice that he can hear coming from somewhere down the street, a girl hawking the _Daily Prophet_.

"…betrayal!" she calls. "Boy Who Lived _shocked_ by Weasley's deception! Read what the Ministry _isn't_ telling you, for only five knuts! Harry Potter's secret anguish unfolded before you! The signs that Weasley's friends chose to ignore! Read it all right here!"

When he peers out from his alcove, he can see a cluster of people around the street corner in the distance. They're taking the girl at her word, apparently, because more than a few have walked by his doorway, his hiding spot, crooked noses already buried in the pages.

"Weasley, Weasley!" she calls again. "Read about Weasley the Betrayer, Weasley the Traitor!" And Ron can take it no more. He pulls the collar of his shabby transfigured robe up higher around his neck, as if it will help to obscure his freckles, his red hair, his face, which is plastered on the front page of every _Prophet_ in the country. Above the fold, even, the spot normally reserved for Fudge and Harry.

Or Percy, Ron remembers suddenly. Percy's picture made it above the fold twice. Once on the day of his arrest, then again on the day that he—

Ron steps out into the street, keeping his head low, and he hears his name once, twice, people who have recognized him, but he doesn't speak. He doesn't acknowledge them, hardly even breathes.

He lets the breath go when he puts his hand on the door handle of the _Snitch_. Cool metal that seems to mold to his hand as he touches it, then the door opens, and while he was able to hear voices while he was standing outside, the room he walks into is silent.

Eyes are on him, more than he can hope to count during his first survey of the room. Sweat prickles on the back of his neck and he wants to reach up and swipe it away, but that would mean admitting that he was uncomfortable.

It would mean acknowledging that he doesn't belong there, when really, he does.

He has to.

The _Snitch_ is not a large pub, but it is apparently well established. The sign above the bar reads: _Serving Knockturn Alley since 1754_ and the bar keep, a little old man with a gleam in his single eye that hints to his loyalties, well looks as if he could have been there for as long as the pub has.

There are rectangular tables off to the sides, interspersed with the circular tables that are also filling the floor. Ron has time to take all of this in, scowling to cover his discomfiture, before the first wizard stands up from his chair. Its flimsy wooden legs screech over the floor, renting the silence but raising the tension.

Now, in addition to the sheen of sweat, Ron can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He drops one of his hands to the pocket where his wand is hidden. He's hopelessly outnumbered, but at least he'll go down fighting.

At least if he dies, he thinks, his name will be cleared, his family's honor restored, and he'll go down in the history books for not only being Harry Potter's best friend, but the least successful spy that ever there was.

The other wizard doesn't draw his wand, though. Instead, slowly, he brings his hands together, and it takes Ron a moment before he realizes that the man is clapping.

For him.

And not just one wizard, because the sound moves like the tide around the room, becoming honest to goodness—if rather weak—applause. Suddenly, it's okay for Ron to blush, to swipe his hand across his neck, so he does. Now it looks as if he's being humble, as if he's feeling overwhelmed by the response, and he is. He really, really is.

By the time the first witch approaches him, Ron is breathing normally again and is almost smiling. He doesn't want to be, because his life as he knows it is gone, but the people are clapping for him and something _he_ did. They're wanting to meet him, because of who he is, not who knows.

He should feel sick with this praise, he thinks as he starts shaking hands, but a small part of him admits that it feels good.

Soon, though—maybe too soon—the people stop coming up to introduce themselves, stop welcoming him into their fold, and the brief feeling of euphoria fades into non-existence, as if it was never there at all.

He's left standing by the door alone, a traitor to everything he knows.

He is staring down at the chipped mug in his hand, a solemn frown on his face, when suddenly a copy of the _Prophet_ comes sliding across the table towards him, only stopping as the soft corner is crumpled against his chest. His picture is looking up at him, waving cheekily, and the headline reads, simply, _Betrayal!_

When he looks up, he sees Malfoy standing on the other side of the small circular table and he should be smirking, Ron thinks. He should be smirking, because Malfoy always smirks and sneers and that's the way life is. Malfoy's not, though. His arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes are glittering like ice, and there is no amusement in his gaze.

"I don't believe a word of it, Weasley," Malfoy spits. Softly, so as not to draw attention to the two of them, and that's un-Malfoy-like as well. Malfoy, as far as Ron knows, _always_ wants to be the center of attention.

"Bugger off," Ron says. His voice is husky with an exhaustion that he knows more sleep won't cure. Euphoria gone, he's back to trying to play his part. "Bugger off and go bug somebody who actually _cares_ what you think."

Ron didn't see Malfoy come in, didn't hear the door to the pub open to emit him and Goyle, who's standing at Malfoy's shoulder, looking more constipated than fierce. And even though Ron tries to look back down at his drink, to ignore Malfoy, the blond doesn't leave. He walks _around_ the table, _around_ to where Ron is sitting, and sits himself right down on the bench next to him.

"Tell me why I should 'bugger off,'" he hisses. "Of the two of us, I'm the one with the _right_ to be here. I don't know what you think you're playing at, Weasley, but let me tell you, I can smell one of your 'good guy' schemes a mile off and you, my traitorous friend, _stink_ of it."

As he speaks, Malfoy wrinkles up his nose, as if to emphasize his point and Ron curls his lip, on the verge of baring his teeth. He can hit Malfoy now, he thinks. No one would think anything of it, because in the time that he's been sitting in his corner, he's seen two wizards draw their wands on each other _twice_ , a third be punched in the nose by a barmaid, and a witch in the street get mowed down by a curse of indeterminate origin. The crowds outside parted to let her fall, but they closed in again before anyone helped her up. For all he knows, she's still lying in the street.

The new Ron Weasley doesn't care.

"It shouldn't take you this long to think up your empathetic denial," Malfoy says.

"I've got nothing to deny," Ron says slowly. He's practiced these words many times, so that they roll off of his tongue, but that doesn't make them any easier to say. "My brother— He—he started making sense, before he—" A heartfelt pause, a swallow. "He started talking sense about where the Wizarding World is going, where we are right now. And then after— After, I got to thinking, and I didn't want his sacrifice to be for nothing."

Malfoy doesn't look convinced. _There's_ the sneer that Ron has been waiting for, the look that says he's just on the verge of laughing at you, raucously, and pointing you out to all of his friends so that they can laugh, too.

He doesn't, though, and Ron can't help but wonder how many friends Malfoy actually has in this room.

"Just like that," the blond says, slapping his wand against the edge of the table. Sparks of gold shoot out of the tip, landing and smoldering for a moment on the polished wooden top, before winking out of existence. "Just like that, you _changed_ your mind. Seven years of Potter's and Granger's influences washed clean from your impressionable little brain by a few words of heresy from dear brother Percy. My, my, Weasley, you're even more gullible than I gave you credit for."

Ron looks down at the paper again. Harry's picture is there, too. It's a new one, from the week before, taken at a special celebrity Quidditch benefit match meant to raise money for children left parentless by the Second War.

Ron wasn't there. He pleaded exhaustion, or paperwork that still needed to be completed. Something, he can't remember what. Harry didn't protest, though, and Hermione only frowned, looking resigned, as if she'd rather expected as much.

"Missing your pals?" Malfoy asks. "Bloody hell, Weasley. Go _back_ , _leave_ , the game is up, I've called your bluff, so just go back to your nice warm house, with your nice warm family, and leave the deception to those who actually know what we're doing!"

That last part is hissed, almost frantically, and from the look on Draco's face after he speaks the words, Ron can't help but wonder if he said more than he wanted to. But then again, he probably said just as much as he wanted to and not a word more. Malfoys aren't known for their verbal indiscretions. Other indiscretions, yes, of course, but verbal? No.

"I'm not bluffing," Ron says. The words sound lame in his own ears, but it shouldn't matter. No matter how much Malfoy suspects, he won't be able to find fault in Ron's story, because for all intents and purposes—except for the motivation behind it—it's all true.

Namely, he _was_ leaking information, he _was_ conducting secret meetings with Nott's lackeys, and he did flee the Ministry, after the carefully planted trail of suspicion led directly to him. For all intents and purposes, he _is_ a traitor and even Malfoy can't find fault with that. He can only suspect.

Malfoy leans in close, so close that Ron can smell the sourness of alcohol on his breath, and jabs a finger into Ron's chest, leaving it there as he speaks.

"I don't trust you, Weasley. I'm never going to trust you and as long as we're here, as long as the both of us are alive, I'm going to make it my duty to make sure that no one else—particularly the Management—trusts you either."

"Too late, Malfoy," Ron hisses. "The Management already does."

In disgust, Malfoy pushes himself away from Ron, sliding across the slick varnish of the bench, and stands up. He stalks to the door, Goyle trailing behind him like a well-trained goon, and for the first time all day, Ron genuinely smiles.

It's ironic, Ron thinks, that Malfoy, quite possibly the person who hates him the most in the world, is the only one—apparently—who isn't fooled.

At least one person in the world still believes in him, he thinks.

Or maybe, it's that Malfoy never has.

He's no longer smiling when Nott finally deigns to come meet with him, face to face, sliding into the seat across the table and leaning forward in a rather conspiratorial manner. His bodyguards flank them, tall and dark and apish in build, and they glower at Ron for a full minute before turning their backs, providing a human wall between the two of them and the rest of the world.

Nott doesn't speak at first, just stares, and as he does, Ron tries valiantly not to twitch in his seat, because he might have actually been lying just a bit when he told Malfoy that Management already trusted him.

Because they don't.

Not at all.

At least, that's the feeling that Ron is getting from Nott. The black eyes just don't blink. They stare and stare and Ron can't let himself look away; somehow he knows that this is one test he must pass.

Nott looks much as he did back at Hogwarts, but he's even thinner, weedier now, Ron decides. The planes of his face are longer, darker, his cheeks and chin covered with a scruff of black hair, and although he looks a bit worn around the edges, he looks harder, too, sharper than Ron remembers. He looks like a weapon carved and poised, point already aimed at the heart of its target.

"You've cut and run," Nott says too many moments later, finally looking away. His fingers rub at the threadbare sleeve of his once-fine robe, an unconscious gesture, and Ron finally lets his fingers clench around his mug again, warm glass ungiving in his grip.

"Bloody bolted from the Ministry's clutches," he continues. "I would say 'Bravo,' Weasley, but I don't trust you. There's only one of your lot that I trusted and he's as good as dead."

" _Is_ dead," Ron says, because Percy is dead to him, to his entire family.

"Is _as good as_ ," Nott corrects. He gestures off into space, presumably towards Azkaban, but it looks to be at the ceiling, or maybe the curiosity shop across the street. "He's still alive, technically, a living martyr to our cause."

Ron wants to close his eyes, to draw in a deep breath, but he just nods his head once, a sharp jerk. "Our cause," he echoes.

Nott stares at him again, and for some reason—maybe because talk of Percy has re-steeled him—it's easier to meet that gaze this time. Maybe it's because this time, the other man's stare is evaluating.

"I remember you from school. You and all of your little Gryffindor friends. You and Potter, Granger. And you know what I wonder, Weasley? I wonder why you'd turn away from them _now_ , after the war is won. After your side has won."

Ron wishes that Harry and Hermione were sitting there with him, suddenly, so that they would be able to hear what he's about to say and punish him properly. A fist to the mouth should do it, he thinks. Possibly a curse that would knock him out for a few days and give him the worst headache he's ever had the pleasure of being personally acquainted with.

"They aren't purebloods, are they," he says slowly. The Inspector told him that he sounds more believable when he speaks slowly. Earnestly. Also, he's less likely to slip up, make mistakes from speaking in haste. "They didn't grow up here, did they. They don't understand what we'll be giving up if we let the Muggles dictate our policy decisions."

He thinks he sounds awful and truthful, but still, still, Nott doesn't look convinced. Ron leans forward, until only Nott and his goons can hear the words that pass through his lips.

"I've given up my life for this cause. I passed on what information I could to a cause I believed in, I got caught, and now I'm _here_. Have I played you false yet? Tell me, have I?"

At first, Nott doesn't answer. He stands up, pushing his chair in, and then speaking loudly enough so that the wizards a few tables over can hear as well, he says, "The funny thing about traitors, Weasley, is how addicted they get to the deception. How it's rarely a one way street." He rests his hands on the table again and lowers his voice. "Prove to me that I can trust you, Weasley. Prove it to me."

Then, he's gone and Ron lets himself slouch down in his seat again. The Inspector told him that infiltration wasn't easy and now, now, Ron believes him.

He tries to pretend that the wizards at the surrounding tables aren't looking at him in distrustful manners rather than appreciative, as they had been before.

It will take a long time and a lot of hard work, this infiltration, the Inspector told him, but Ron—naively, he now knows—was holding out hope that things might go a bit more smoothly than that. Nott would welcome him with open arms, maybe, and he'd truly be that hero he was for a few minutes, when he first entered the _Snitch_.

It's not to be, he knows that now, as he sits at his little round table, staring down to the bottom of his chipped mug, the dregs of his ale warm and still. There's a difference between discussing theory and probability in a cluttered, musty office with the Inspector and actually living the reality.

Basically, he doesn't know what to do.

If he stays where he's sitting, he risks the opinion in the room turning against him—as it will, he's suddenly sure, given the whispers that are slowly traveling around the room, like ripples in a tide pool, moving ever outwards.

If he leaves, stands up from this miserable little table and pushes his way through the gathering crowd to the door of the pub, he risks people believing it an admission of guilt, an acknowledgment that Nott was speaking the truth. His assignment will be over before it ever truly begins.

If it isn't already over, that is.

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't," he mutters into his glass, lips barely moving, and softly enough so that he's sure no one else can hear him. So that it looks like he's just another drunkard, muttering nonsense to his only friend in the room.

"Aye," the wizard at the table to Ron's right says. It's no one that he recognizes, just a man that looks to be on the wrong side of middle-aged, rough around the edges, with deep lines in the thick skin of his face. He holds his mug up in Ron's direction—acknowledgement? An informal toast?—and Ron sees that his fingers are callused, the skin cracked, with nails that are potions grimy and chipped.

The wizard can't have heard him, he can't have, Ron knows, not even with one of Fred and George's enhanced eavesdropping devices, because Ron's lips barely moved. He really only heard the words in his head. It never hurts to be cautious, though. That's one thing Ron didn't need the Inspector to tell him.

"Aye?" Ron asks hesitantly.

The wizard nods sagely. His round eyes twinkle rather like Dumbledore's used to, just before he said something completely barmy, a non-sequitor that made sense only in his own mind.

"Aye," he says. "The _Snitch_ always fills up 'round this time o' the night, it does. It's more crowded than usual, mind you, but you'd be the reason for that. You and Mr. Nott and his speeching."

Ron nods warily; he doesn't know what to say. The man seems friendly enough, but the people here, he doesn't trust them. Just like they, apparently, don't trust him.

The wizard ducks his head to the right, then the left, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the people in the room. Instinctively—or maybe it's paranoia setting in—Ron does the same. He looks back at the wizard in time to see him scooting across the bench, until he's close enough for Ron to smell the alcohol on his breath, his clothes.

Maybe he's not loony, Ron thinks. Maybe he's just overly intoxicated, like Ron wishes _he_ was. He doesn't sound drunk when he speaks next, though. He doesn't say things that Ron would blame on drink.

"He needs you, Mr. Nott does," the wizard whispers, his voice sounding as if it was being strained through gravel. "He's 'fraid of you, Mr. Weasley. You're the biggest thing that's happened to The Cause since your brother, well."

He jerks his head towards the wall, knowing that Ron will know what he means, then leans in closer still, letting his fingers come to rest on the top of Ron's table. They start tapping a rhythm, thick and uneven. Ron looks down, feeling his own fingers twitch in his lap.

The wizard continues: "He's worried, Mr. Nott is, that people will start looking to you in this fight, rather than him. Just like they looked to your brother."

And Ron, suddenly, wants to breathe a deep sigh of relief, because there, there is the glimmer of hope that he's been looking for since he started this god-forsaken assignment. All is _not_ lost already, he thinks. There are people, he thinks, that want to believe in him, no matter what Nott says.

Nott, he suddenly realizes, is not the only one who matters.

"I'm not looking to lead anything," Ron says. He lifts his mug to his lips, tries to take a sip before he realizes that it's as good as empty, then sets it back down again, lining the bottom up with the ring on the table. "I only want to do what I can, to do what I believe is right."

He has his goals, after all. The ones that he carefully worked out with the Inspector over the months leading up to his escape. They don't involve leading anything. They just involve him being on the inside, in a position to do some good at the end, because with the direction that Nott seems to be leading The Cause, an end must eventually come. It has to.

"But he don't know that yet, does he?" the wizard asks. "He only knows what he'd do if he was in your position, Mr. Weasley. That's all he knows. You were of more use to him on the inside, you were." His eyes twinkle again. "But some of the rest of us, we're glad you're here."

Ron nods again, this time venturing an almost genuine smile. "Aye," he says. "Well—"

The wizard's attention is no longer on him, though. It's at the front of the room, where there is a loud clamor of voices, the sounds of chairs and tables being moved, and then there is Nott, standing on a bench, head, shoulders, and waist above the crowd.

"Let the speeching begin," the wizard says, softly, already scooting away again. "You'll be the topic, of course. He don't have to trust you to use you."

Ron's breath catches in his throat as he sits back on his bench, then he turns his attention to the front of the room, too.

"Today," Nott says loudly, more loudly than Ron has ever heard him speak before. "Today is a glorious day in the life of our Cause. Today we gain a strong ally, an ally that is known the world 'round."

His eyes, large and black and dancing with reflected firelight, like two furnaces that have grown too hot, look to Ron. The rest of the room looks to Ron, too, and he doesn't know what to do, whether he should crouch down in his seat, or raise his empty mug in salute. He stares right back at Nott, not trying to challenge even though—if the wizard next to him is right—it will probably be construed that way anyway.

"Today," Nott continues, "a genuine _War Hero_ joins our ranks, giving up the life that he has always known for the good of our humble objectives."

There is noise then, whispers and shouts, clapping and the scraping of chair legs over the uneven floor as some patrons turn to look at him, others to Nott. Then everyone is looking at Nott, even Ron, as the man at the front of the room claps his hands twice, sharply, a call for attention.

"We have other new faces in our crowd today. New faces are joining ours every single day and that, my friends, my companions in this fight, makes my heart glad. I am proud, _proud_ to be in the company of such forward thinkers, the future leaders of this world."

It should have sounded silly, Ron thinks, a Slytherin talking about his heart being made glad, but it doesn't. There's a warm tone to Nott's voice, a curl and a dip which catch Ron in their embrace, almost making _him_ believe, too.

If he didn't know better, he thinks, he would believe.

"I am proud," Nott says, his voice rising to a shout, "to be a member of a group of people who would not turn their backs on me just because I might see the world in a different way. Just because I have the _courage_ to stand up for what I think is right."

A wizard off to the side of the room, a little man with bushy eyebrows shadowed under a crumpled top hat, lets out a whoop. Others follow until Nott has to gesture them quiet again. As he does so, Ron watches him step fully up onto the tabletop, his feet landing in the spaces between plates of bread and mugs of frothy ale. He starts pacing back and forth, back and forth, keeping the attention of the room focused on him.

"You all know about Ron Weasley," Nott says. "You all know what you've read about him in the papers today, or what your friend's neighbor's sister's husband's cousin had to say about him. Today, he's been the talk of the Wizarding World. Today, some call him a traitor, but not me. Not me."

He takes a deep breath and holds out a hand to his—his bodyguard? Ron thinks it is, although it's a different man than the one he brought to Ron's table, and a mug is placed in his grip. He takes a long pull of it, then licks the froth from his lips.

This is not the Nott that Ron remembers from his school days. This Nott is a leader, knows how to work the crowd and rile them up, and Ron is no longer wondering how he came to be the head of this movement, him and Percy. His blood is almost pounding with the energy that Nott is calling forth and he's just there to absorb, to betray.

"Let me tell you what I know about Ron Weasley," Nott says more softly, calming the energy in the room. Not diffusing it, because Ron can still feel it thrumming in his veins, but containing it, making it manageable.

"A year ago, he approached me, offering us help, offering us information, whatever was in his power to give. I had my doubts as to the motives behind his offer, but after careful consideration, and in memory of my dear friend, his brother Percy, I accepted. Ron Weasley, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason we're here today. The information that he has provided us has proved to be most valuable, letting us make inroads where it might not have been suspected inroads could be made."

He takes another swig of his ale, violently almost, Ron thinks, and the amber liquid drips down his hand, landing on the table beneath his feet.

"Today, my brothers and sisters, with him standing visibly beside us, we are stronger than we have ever been before. We are a cohesive group, all of us equal in this fight that we have embarked on, and we are strong. From today on out, the Ministry must look at us and realize that we are a force to be reckoned with! People—our friends and neighbors and relatives—will look to us and see possibilities that they did not see before! The world, my friends, will fall at our feet. "

He smiles, an almost friendly, almost encouraging sort of curving of lips, and then he raises his mug in the air, toasting the world.

"Today, we have taken a large step forward. To Ron Weasley," he calls.

There's a shout around the room, loud and long and riotous. Ron blushes.

"To The Cause," Nott finishes, this time adding his own shouts to those echoing around the room.

Ron lifts his own glass in the air, wishing it was full, and says, "To The Cause," before pretending to drink.  



	3. Chapter 3

For a few moments after Ron wakes up the next morning, he thinks it's all been a dream. He only feels a draft because the twins, bastards, snuck into his room during the night and opened his window. He hears running water because Ginny, girl that she is, slipped into the loo before he had a fair chance. For a few moments, he's sure that his mum is in the kitchen downstairs putting together a nice large breakfast and that Percy is at the table, waiting to regale them all with tales of the fight for standardized cauldron thickness.

Then he makes the mistake of opening his eyes.

The room doesn't look any better in the early dawn light than it did the day before. One of the two windows is boarded up, the cracks between the planks letting in the air that he feels; the glass in the other is filthy, layered with cobwebs. The walls are no better: the plaster is cracked and powdery, showing the beams beneath and the fireplace is small and blackened, the hearth rusted. The sitting chair before it has its stuffing hanging out of its arse.

"Hell," Ron murmurs, but his voice sounds loud to his ears in the otherwise quiet room. He sits up, pulling his sheet-covered legs to his chest, and for a moment, just a few moments, he lets himself press his face to knees.

"One," he says. "Two. Three."

He'll draw a deep breath in through his nose on the count of five, he tells himself. He'll get out of bed and get started on his day, because he has important things to do, like stay alive, stay wicked, and find someone who will hire a person whose resume currently bears the word 'Traitor' in big, bold letters across the top.

"Four." Another deep breath, this time with an added swallow. "Five."

He tosses the sheet away from his body, then swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. He winces as his feet touch the floor, in part because the boards are as cold as the air that's seeping into his room, but mostly because they are not the smoothest things known to wizard-kind, gritty and splintered.

Standing up, he gingerly starts walking towards the hearth, where he dropped the copy of the Prophet that Malfoy shoved at him the night before. He hasn't read the article about him yet; in the ale-drugged haze of the previous night, that'd seemed acceptable, but as he stares at the rolled up paper now, he knows that it's not.

He starts to lean down to pick it up, then stops and reaches over to grab his trousers and jumper—non-Weasley, of course—off of the seat of the chair. He pulls them on as quickly as he can, hoping that it'll be a sort of armor between him and the words.

He'll feel less vulnerable fully clothed, he thinks, than if he was just wearing a pair of shorts. He has to.

But when Ron sits down in the chair a minute later, listening as it creaks beneath his weight, he's not sure whether it worked or not. He does know that he wouldn't want to feel any less vulnerable, though.

The ink is smudged on the page from his manhandling of it the night before, but the words, unfortunately, are still readable. He blinks his eyes closed, takes a deep breath, then slides them open again, making himself look beyond the pictures, beyond the headline.

 _By Justin Finch-Fletchley_ , the byline reads. _Ministry Correspondent_ , and of course Justin would be the one writing the article, Ron realizes. He should have been expecting it; he did give Justin a few of the scoops that helped him on his way up the corporate ladder, after all. He and Justin, Seamus and Dean, Neville and Harry and a few of the Hufflepuffs even went out drinking together not so long ago, to celebrate the promotion in style.

Seeing Justin's name pricks him like a thorn, though, and it hurts worse somehow, he decides, to know that this article is what his friend believes of him, will be what the world believes of him, because of what his friend wrote.

"Once thought hero of the Second War, it now appears that Ronald Weasley, Order of Merlin First Class, may be anything but," he reads aloud, then swallows, reading the rest silently.

 _The Ministry announced early Wednesday that Weasley had been pulled in for questioning with regards to the Ministry leak, only publicized a few weeks ago. Two hours later, they announced that during a routine transportation from Ministry Headquarters to an undisclosed location, Weasley attacked his guard, stole his wand, and apparated. He is thought to have headed to Knockturn Alley._

At this point in time, Polly Parrotson, a spokeswoman for the Ministry, said, Weasley has been accused of nothing and no warrants have, thus far, been issued for his arrest or capture. But this, many think, is likely to change.

'We just want to talk to him,' Parrotson insisted. 'Really, that's all we want to do. We just have a few more questions that we need to ask.'

''s mighty suspicious, if you ask me,' Gilbert Toulouse, owner of Toulouse Arts on Diagon Alley, said. 'Why's he need to run ifs he's not guilty?'

'He's guilty,' a high-level Ministry source agreed. 'There's a trail of evidence a year long. The Ministry is just trying to cover up the fact that they should have seen through Weasley earlier, eleven months ago, when signs of the leak first started appearing.'

If Weasley is guilty of leaking information to the Wizard Freedom Fighters, as the general consensus seems to be that he is, he will have been responsible for the deaths of—

And Ron can read no more.

He tosses the paper away from him, watching as it falls, pages fluttering, to the cold hearth. He stands up, scrubbing the palms of his hands on the fabric of his trousers, not feeling any cleaner for it. Sweat is beaded at the back of his neck, on his forehead, in the creases of his elbows, and he can't stand still, can't stay in the room any longer.

He hooks his finger in the collar of the robe that's still draped over the chair, folds it over his arm, walks back over to the bed to grab the wand from beneath his pillow, and then walks out the door. It slams shut behind him, but even though it's early, he doesn't care. Everyone else is only paying two sickles a week for their rooms, too—they can't expect anything better.

His first thought is that he should head back to the Snitch, but the Inspector told him that he had to try to make a life here in Knockturn Alley, and while that life should be centered around The Cause and the goings on at the pub, it shouldn't be seen to be his whole life.

Act natural, the Inspector told him. Make it a natural part of your life.

The outside world is even colder than his room was and before he starts walking, he bundles himself up into his robe. It doesn't do much good, but it's something and Ron wouldn't be a Weasley if he didn't know that every little bit counts. He shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking, peering at all of the shops that he passes. A native of Knockturn Alley would look at the ground, at the sludge-encrusted cobblestones beneath his feet, but the whole world knows that he's not a native. He can look around if he wants to.

There's a witch on the corner, a cart of some sort of food in front of her—whatever it is, it smells good—and Ron is hungry, his stomach suddenly growling, rumbling like the Gryffindor lion, Ginny would say before Ron swatted her with a pillow.

He digs a few knuts out of his rapidly dwindling supply as he walks to the cart, and drops them into the witch's pudgy hand. In return, she hands him a napkin with a meat-filled bun, gravy dripping out a hole in the dough. He nods his thanks, smiles at her, and between her apron and bonnet, she doesn't look so different from a witch he might see on Diagon Alley, he doesn't think.

Hurriedly, he turns away, biting down into the bun as he starts walking again. It's good, as good as any breakfast his mum ever made for him, and he's licking the last traces of gravy from his fingers far too soon.

He walks for what feels to be hours, but in reality is probably no more than two. Up and down streets, peering into dark, dusty windows, giving a wide berth to the shops that are obviously make their business the darker arts. He watches as window-shades roll themselves up, as signs on doors change from 'Closed' to 'Open,' as shopkeepers take up their stations behind their tills, but he keeps on walking.

Until he passes what looks to be the most normal looking shop he's seen down the Alley, a book shop, Libris Exacto, and lo, there is a little sign in the bottom pane of the front window that reads, 'Help Wanted.'

Ron stops. He stares. He takes two steps towards the door, stops again with his hand resting on the knob, counts to four before the door is yanked open from the wrong side, and a kind looking little man with a scruff of white hair says, "Can I help ye?"

"Uh," Ron says, rather intelligently. "I, uh." He points to the sign in the window, coughs, and finally manages to spit the words out: "I saw your sign. That you were hiring. I wanted to apply. For the job." Another cough. "Or, rather, see if I was qualified to apply for the job, that is."

The wizard looks at him. His eyes are large, Ron notices, buggy, like a toads.

"You're that Weasley," the Wizard says. "The youngest boy. The one that's been in all of the papers." Suddenly, his hand shoots out and curls around Ron's wrist, then he full-on jerks Ron into the book shop. For such a small man, he's surprisingly strong. "We'd best do our talking inside, then, bes'n't we?"

He lets go of Ron and gestures for him to move farther into the store, so Ron does. Hermione would be in heaven, he thinks. Bookshelves stretching up the ceiling, musty smelling leather bindings that look to belong to rare books, that feeling of calm, quiet, that she used to say she needed, back during the last days of the war.

Ron turns back to the wizard, remembering that he's applying for a position here, and it won't do much to help his case if he continues to ignore the man who would be his boss.

"Funny," the wizard says before he can speak. "I don't remember hearing that you were much of a book lover. Your brother Percy, yes. That young girl you used to walk out with, yes, but not you."

Ron's lips curve up into a crooked smile and he chuckles humorlessly.

"I'm not. But I know a bit now, thanks to my family and—" he grimaces, that he should ever be referring to Hermione in such a way "—acquaintances. I know how useful they can be. I have a slightly better opinion of them now that I don't have to use them anymore."

Thankfully, the wizard actually chuckles at that. His eyes crinkle up, his round cheeks bulge with his smile, and he rubs his hands together. "Aye, aye, that's often the way it works, now isn't it? Aye, aye." He nods his head in agreement with himself, then looks Ron in the eyes and says, "Me name is Chubbs. Marvin Chubbs."

"Good to meet you."

Ron doesn't know what to say beyond that, so as he waits for Chubbs to keep on talking, he concentrates on not letting himself fidget. Hands in his pockets, feet planted firmly on the ground, and he will not scratch the itch on the tip of his nose, he will not.

"Tell me, Mr. Weasley—" Chubbs starts.

"Ron. Please call me Ron."

"Ron, then. Tell me, Ron. Do you have any experience working in a shop?"

"Yes," Ron says, and for one of the first times in his life, he's glad that the twins drafted him into working at their Hogsmeade shop. "Yes, I do. I worked in my brothers' shop for two summers. Before I started working for the Ministry."

Before Percy, before he started leaking information, before he ran from the Ministry, a fugitive from his world even if there's no official warrant out for him yet. It's only a matter of hours, he knows. Days at most, however long it takes the Inspector to "discover" exactly how much access he had to secret Ministry files.

"Aye, aye. Yes. Weasley Wizard Wheezes, good store that. Provided the young'uns with just the sorts of distractions they needed during those dark days."

Ron nods warily, wondering which side of those 'dark days' Chubbs had been on. "It's a good store."

"But obviously you can't work there now. You can't work much of anywhere now, if everything they say in the papers is true." Chubbs pinches his chin between his fingers, then moves his fingers down to his throat. "It is true, I take it, or you wouldn't be standing here, asking me for a job."

"It's true." It's easier to say the words today, Ron realizes. He sounds more convincing, he thinks.

Chubbs harrumphs, narrows his eyes, and opens his mouth, on the verge of saying something—no, Ron's sure, because it just can't be that easy. This life he's trying to make for himself won't be easy, not in the slightest, and for the first shop he tries at to hire him, well. It just wouldn't be right. That's not the way his luck goes.

"I've been where you are," Chubbs says softly, so softly that Ron's not sure he's meant to hear, then he coughs and shakes his head, as if rousing himself from a trance, then continues. "Aye, well, your brother did me a good turn once. I'm not saying I agree wit' everything your lot are trying to do, but I don't disagree either. And your brother used to come in here, he did. He was a good man, he was. Believed strongly in The Cause and you can't fault a man for that, can you? You can have the job. Probationary-like, of course."

"Of course," Ron says, smiling widely, and as he shakes Chubbs' hand, as he thanks him profusely for the opportunity, he decides that maybe this is the way his luck is going. Maybe it's a good sign, a portent of things to come.

Or maybe, he thinks, he finally has something about this whole horrid situation that he genuinely wants to thank Percy for.

He only pauses for a moment on the doorstep before he enters the Snitch that evening, just time enough for one breath, not even a count of five, and then he's inside, the heat and life of the room seeming almost overwhelming after the cool impersonality of the world outside.

It's different tonight, less nerve-wracking and although people still glance at him when he walks in, there's a less noticeable hush, fewer blatant stares. It's more like he's a just man walking into a new pub, the regulars acknowledging a not-so-familiar face. He still studies the room as he walks to the bar, trying to remember who was there the night before, who wasn't, what new threats he might face if someone else doesn't buy his story.

It's not likely, though, he knows. Not when Nott has welcomed him to the fold, not when he has a job, a solid base to build his lies on. Not when—

"Ron, Ron," a witch calls from down the bar before he can order his drink, one he recognizes from Hogwarts—a Slytherin, a seventh year when he was a first—and she's waving him over, so he goes.

She's standing in front of a wall covered in posters—Most Wanted posters, he sees upon closer examination. Names and reward sums. He recognizes the faces of a few of the wizards and witches in the room, scattered at tables around the room, talking and laughing and drinking with others. Some of the parchments are old, edges torn and discolored, but the one in the very center, on the top, is new and bright.

"Wanted," she reads, her voice running like spiders down his spine. "Information leading to the apprehension of one Ronald Weasley. They must want you pretty badly, musn't they, given how many Galleons they're offering."

Ron can feel the color draining from his cheeks. He knew the poster was coming, of course. It was part of the plan, another sign that things were going exactly as the Inspector wanted them to go. It was a rather large sum of Galleons, though, and if anyone in Knockturn Alley was desperate enough…

"I wouldn't worry your head about it," the witch continues. "No one on this wall 's been caught yet. Not unless Mr. Nott wants them to be and he's not going to want you to be." She leans in, her breath flickering across his cheek like a snake's tongue. "The Alley doesn't take kindly to intruders, you know."

Ron nods. That's what the Inspector told him, thus every single thing he's done in the past year so that he might have the best possible chance of fitting in.

"You're one of us now," the witch continues. "You and your brother. I always knew the two of you had the most potential of anyone in your family. Could see it even back at Hogwarts. Knew you wouldn't be content living in Potter's shadow forever."

He chuckles mirthlessly at that, says, "No, no more shadows for me," then turns back to the bar. He drops his money down onto the countertop and nods at the barkeep, who hurries over with a mug of ale, Ron's drink from the night before. Ron takes it and turns back to the room, looking for a place to sit, a corner to hide in, maybe.

It's not meant to be, though, because every last corner of the room—all seven of them, plus four more alcoves—is taken, the last by Draco Malfoy, who seems to spot Ron in the same moment that Ron spots him. His eyes narrow, his face seems to become even more pale, and as their gazes lock, he starts to stand up from his table.

But then Ron hears someone saying, "Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley," and it's the wizard from the night before, the one with the bushy eyebrows, and he's standing in front of Ron, smiling a gap-toothed smile.

"Join us won't you, Mr. Weasley?" the wizard says. "My Elvira, she'd dearly like to meet you, she would. She be a big fan of your brothers' pranks, she be."

Ron nods at the wizard and follows him to a table in the center of the room, right in the middle of the action. He can feel the heavy weight of Malfoy's gaze on him as he walks and after he's sitting down and listening to Elvira talk about the trouble her young girls have gotten up to courtesy of his brothers' inventions, he glances over again.

This is what he finds interesting: Malfoy is sitting all alone, none of the people at the nearby tables paying him any mind at all. In this room, Malfoy, he thinks suddenly, might be even less trusted than he is. It's a thought that warms him right up inside and he can't help but give him a taunting, overly cheery grin.

He's playing with fire, the Inspector would say, but it's Malfoy and some habits die hard.

Some things will never change.

Before he can see Malfoy's reaction, though, he turns his attention back to Elvira and starts telling her of the products that the twins were in the process of developing when he left.

Nott doesn't make an appearance that night.

It's late when Ron returns to his room and he needs to be up early the next morning— work to go to and all—but he's not tired yet. The ale is buzzing through his system, making him feel more relaxed than he has in days. He slowly takes off his robe and drapes it over the chair, digs the wand out of the pocket, and he's already pointing it in the direction of the hearth, incendio on the tip of his tongue when he sees the paper lying there still.

Slowly, he steps over to the hearth and picks it up, dusting what ashes he can from the pages. He eyes his picture one more time, then lets his eyes travel farther down the article, to the end, just for shits and giggles, as Seamus would have put it.

Spokespeople for Harry Potter could not be reached for comment.

And Ron laughs, because it always comes back to Harry in the end, doesn't it? Always, no matter what he does.

He tosses the paper back onto the hearth, mutters "incendio," and smiles as he watches it go up in flames.


	4. Chapter 4

It's early in the evening and the _Snitch_ is quiet for the most part, only about half of the tables full. Most of the witches and wizards are clustered down at Nott's end of the room, though, and it's pleasantly warm, with just enough quiet chatter for Ron to be able to tune it out, to focus all of his attention on what Nott is saying.

"There is a difference," Nott says softly as he looks around the rectangular table, studying the rapt faces that are staring back at him. Six or eight right there, but more are at the next tables all four of them and Ron is one of those.

"A difference," he says again, sliding the tip of his finger across the slick wood of the tabletop, like he's drawing a picture, "between talking and doing. Between making plans and carrying them out. Between planting seeds and harvesting them. Over the last three years, my friends, we have talked, we have made plans, and we have sowed the seeds of our ideas. And now, I say, the time has come to act, to do, and to reap our rewards. Do you agree?"

It's an intimate talk this, the sort that engenders determination rather than enthusiasm. If Nott was standing on the top of a table, ale soaking the cuff of his robe as his pacing sloshed it out of his mug, Ron would have expected there to be shouts and cheers, people jumping up from their seats in agreement and support. As it is, though, the empathetic nodding seems appropriate, the quiet murmurs of aye.

Ron nods too, because he never knows when Nott's gaze will slide in his direction; it has twice already that evening. Each time, his eyes have been cool, distrustful, but he doesn't seem to be editing his speech (conversation, whatever it is) any, so that, Ron hopes, says something.

Or maybe he's just decided that there's not anything Ron can do to stop him.

Ron watches as Nott smiles at his followers, beatific, like he's granting them a gift, but then the corners of his lips twitch, just once, almost as if he's suppressing laughter and Ron wonders if he is, a prophet mocking his disciples. The lips don't twitch again, though, and he looks so genuinely pleased that Ron starts to wonder if he imagined the whole thing. If he's just reading into the expression what he wants to read into it. What he knows should be there.

"We're in agreement then," Nott continues. "Good, good." He nods, his black bangs falling across his eyes. He doesn't push them away, just nods again. He leans forward, speaking softly again, earnestly.

"I'll be making an announcement tonight. I'd appreciate it if you all were present. If everyone who supports us could be present. If you could spread the word."

Ron turns his head a bit, watching those watching Nott, and they're all leaning forward in their seats, enraptured. This is different from Ron's first night, though, because today, this evening, Nott isn't commanding the room's attention, isn't taking it.

They're _giving_ it to him.

Because and Ron knows this, he does, but it's different seeing it this explicitly they believe. They well and truly, honestly believe, and he can see it on their faces, mouths open with baited breath, eyes shining as they wait for Nott to continue.

But he doesn't.

Instead, he stands up, and some of those at his table start to stand too, but he waves them back down again, even as he uses the shoulder of the wizard next to him to balance himself as he turns to leave.

Ron watches him go and a few minutes later, when all of those around him are ensconced in speculation, he moves to an empty table in the corner.

After his first full day of work at the bookshop, there are other places that Ron would like to be. Namely in his room, in bed but there are reasons why he's in Knockturn Alley, reasons why it's now, and all of them require him to be at the _Snitch_. To stay. Tonight, especially, as it looks like he'll soon be able to confirm or refute the Inspector's suspicions as to Nott's motives.

Confirm, Ron is sure, because in everything concerning Ron's assignment, he likes to think that the Inspector knows all.

And if he's wrong...

The tables are slowly filling up, the serving girls weaving more frequent paths through the increasingly crowded floor, but Ron is still sitting alone. He's pulled a scrap of parchment from his pocket and he's borrowed a quill and pot of ink from the barkeep and now he's sitting there, the tip of the feather brushing over his lips.

 _Mum_ , he writes. The Inspector told him that he should be writing these notes his feed of information in wide open places, where it will be less suspicious. After all, who would think him stupid enough to write the pre-determined cipher in plain sight of those he's writing about?

He crosses out the _Mum_ and replaces it with _Dearest Mum_.

 _Hi. I'm writing you this letter in the hope that you ll see my position on this. I never meant to hurt you, Mum. ~~I just~~ It was not my intention. You will probably be suspicious of my motives here and you have every right to be, ~~Mum I~~ but I am doing the right thing, okay? Percy was onto something even ~~if we~~ if I realized it too late. For him, Mum, I do this. Every moment of it, because I didn't believe him. In the end, that's what it comes down to. And now, looking back, remembering what he said, it all makes sense. He was on the right track. He could see into the future, what was to come, even if the rest of us _

And then the parchment is snatched away from him, straight out from underneath his quill, leaving a mark across the paper. Ron starts to make a frantic grab for it before he realizes who he is, where he is, and who it is, exactly, that is holding his note hostage.

He wipes the hand not holding the quill on the leg of his trousers and takes a deep breath, but he still lets himself glower at Malfoy it would be more suspicious, he thinks, if he didn't.

Malfoy glowers right back.

"And what do we have here?" the blond asks. He slides into the seat across from Ron and begins to read the words on the parchment.

"Dearest Mum," Malfoy reads, a mocking lilt to his voice. His eyes glitter at Ron and Ron feels his fists clenching. He reminds himself that the quill is not his, so he loosens his grip far enough to let it drop to the table, then tucks both of his hands into the folds of his robe.

"I see just a plain old mum wasn't ingratiating enough for you," Malfoy continues, his voice mocking. "And how are you going to sign this letter to your dearest mum? Love, your favourite traitorous son? "

Ron can see Malfoy's eyes scanning the rest of the parchment, undoubtedly trying to figure out what message is secreted there, but as he says the last words, his eyes flicker up to Ron again.

"But wait, Percy was always the favourite one wasn't he? And I'm assuming that carries over into treachery as well." He coughs, looking faintly amused. Bemused, maybe. "That's assuming you really are being treacherous, which, Weasley, I'll have you know, I still don't believe."

"Does it matter what you believe, Malfoy?" Ron asks. Then, with a sigh that's more honest than act, he says, "And I'll have _you_ know that I'm getting rather tired of having this conversation with you."

Malfoy slaps the letter down onto the tabletop. "To your credit, Weasley, I never thought you'd last through your first night, much less all of the way into day three. And spouting such drivel as this, I'm doubly amazed."

"It's not drivel."

"You don't even sound as if you've got yourself convinced, so I can pretty much guarantee that you won't be convincing your Mum of anything. Thus, drivel. It's just Percy this, Percy that, oh poor Percy."

Ron thinks that it's a sign of his maturity that he doesn't reach across the table to pop Malfoy one on the nose, because no matter how betrayed he feels, how much anger and hatred have burned through him in the last year, two, Percy is still Ron's brother.

Was.

Before he can respond, though, Malfoy continues.

"I knew Percy, there at the end," he says, softly for him. Almost thoughtfully. "Before the end. The new Percy Weasley, as he liked to call himself, and we had several long talks, he and I. Does that surprise you, Weasley? That one of your brothers deigned to talk to me? Willingly?"

Ron doesn't speak no words to say but again, even if he had, Malfoy wouldn't have given him a chance, because he keeps right on talking.

"And this is what I have to say about Percy. He was mad as a loon. Absolutely around the bend batty, but he believed. All of this drivel you've been spouting, he believed it, preached it. He lived it, and you, you are just saying the words. The right words, what people want to hear."

He sighs, then and looks out one of the windows. Ron doesn't follow his gaze, to see what's caught his attention, if anything has. He thinks, for a moment, that Malfoy has forgotten he's there.

He keeps on talking, though. "But words are not beliefs. Words are not actions."

"And because he believed, he acted, and look where it got him," Ron says bitterly, before he can stop himself. He bites down on the tip of his tongue, but it's too late. Malfoy is already nodding, like he's made his point, uncovered Ron's truths.

And maybe he has. Maybe Malfoy _will_ be Ron's undoing in this, like he's threatened to be his undoing since their very first meeting, back on the Hogwarts Express when they were eleven. When Malfoy tempted Harry with his friendship, his connections, and Harry threw the offer back in Malfoy's face.

Malfoy turns to him again, the look in his eyes evaluating again. "If you're having those fears still, after all you've purportedly done, you shouldn't have come with in ten feet of Knockturn Alley."

He should protest, Ron knows, but the words just aren't coming as easily as he wants them to. He was prepared to defend himself to Nott, his background was proof enough there, and to give superficial reasons to random people who wanted to believe in him. But not to someone like Malfoy, someone who's spent too many years taunting him to not know him.

"Doesn't everyone fear it, though? Being Kissed? Losing your soul?"

Malfoy laughs at that, an unpleasant sound.

Ron continues: "I do fear it, I'll admit it " He thinks of what he's doing how much he does believe in it and the satisfaction he ll feel when he brings Nott down. The pleasure he ll get, hearing everyone admit they were wrong about him. He reinforces his next words with those thoughts. " but the benefits _will_ outweigh the consequences."

Malfoy actually looks a little taken aback at his vehemence, and he chuckles again, but for the first time in Ron's life, it's almost a startled, friendly sound. He shoves the parchment back in Ron's direction, tapping his finger on the word Mum.

"Try putting that emotion into your words here and you might actually manage to convince someone of your motives."

"You?" Ron asks and Malfoy's eyes glitter again.

"And probably not Potter or Granger either," he says as he shakes his head. "You think I haven't noticed their repeated lack of comments in the _Prophet_? You know as well as I do that neither of them can lie worth shit."

Ron nods in agreement because it's true.

"We can't have them blowing your cover, now can we?" Malfoy continues.

Ron sighs. "And we're back to this."

"Back to this," Malfoy agrees.

But they aren't, not really, because in that moment, Nott enters the room.

He strides across the floor, a plain back robe open down the front and billowing behind him and the room hushes as he moves. Chairs squeak over worn boards, mugs are settled down onto tables, and whispers of speculation begin rising in his wake.

 _Do you think_ — _announce a plan_ — _lead us_

Ron can hear everything, whispered words echoing in his ears, and he slides his gaze around the room, trying to pinpoint who is saying what. He sees familiar faces, witches and wizards that he recognizes from his two previous evenings, but there are more that he doesn't recognize. Far more.

The room is more crowded than it was the night of his arrival, but maybe it isn't unusual. He has to remind himself that he's only on day three here no matter that it's easier to make himself walk into the _Snitch_ , that he feels more comfortable now and that he doesn't know everything, no matter how much prepping he's done.

His gaze slides across Malfoy, too, but unlike the rest of those in the room, the blond doesn't look like he's waiting anxiously for whatever it is that Nott is about to say. He's sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. His gray eyes are flashing in Nott's direction, and not for the first time, Ron wonders what, exactly, is going on in Malfoy's head.

Nott claps his hands sharply, once, twice, and he nods as silence spreads across the room in ripples, like the after effects of a stunning spell.

"Welcome," Nott says. He's standing on top of a table again, looking around the main room of the pub with a proprietary look in his eyes. His thin, stubble-covered cheeks are flushed and he's smiling that real, genuine smile again, except that this time, it's wider.

"Welcome, my friends," he continues, his voice warm, the sound of it curling around the room. "It pleases me greatly that so many of you have chosen to join us tonight for what shall, I hope, long be remembered as a turning point in the life of our noble cause."

A few yelps from unknown wizards and again, Ron can feel the energy rising in the room. Part of it is excitement, and Ron knows that some of that, at least, is emanating off of Nott, feeding the crowd and their excitement, in turn, is feeding him.

Nott draws a deep breath, then nods to someone off at the side of the room, before turning his attention back to the crowd as a whole.

"Earlier this evening, I had the opportunity to talk with a few of our brothers and sisters for a time. I posed a question to them and now, with your permission, I shall pose that same question to you."

He motions to one of his bodyguards and a mug appears in his hands. He takes a deep gulp before handing it away again.

"Three years ago, my dear friend Percy Weasley—" Nott looks at Ron as he talks, his gaze evaluating. "—walked into this very pub, sat down at that very bar, and started talking. He talked to anyone who would listen. About betrayal. About his hopes for what the post-war world could have been. He voiced his disagreements with the Ministry and our esteemed Minister. And I, my friends, my brothers and sisters, was lucky enough to be here that night to hear him. I listened and what he had to say was radical, yes, but it resonated right in here."

Nott slaps a hand over his heart and a few of those in the room start clapping, a cheer or two cutting through the silence. He waves them quiet again and starts pacing the length of the table.

"Right here," he says, patting his chest again. " _Right here._ That night, I joined with Percy and as time went by, more people started seeing the sense in his words, as is evidenced by the all of those gathering here tonight although it is true that this crowd is only a portion of our numbers.

"And for three years, we have talked. We have planned and preached and discussed, but there is a difference between talk and action. A difference."

He stops pacing and turns to face the crowd. Ron sees him swallow once, twice, and for a moment, Ron thinks that Nott looks to be nervous, although it's hardly a word that he associates with this new Nott. A blink later and the thought is gone, though, because Nott starts talking again, his voice just as strong and steady as before.

"And now, my friends, I ask you whether you agree that the time has come to act, to reap our rewards. Is it time, my brothers and sisters? _Is it time_?"

The noise in the room is deafening and Ron only stands because it would be more noticeable if he didn't. Malfoy, he notices, doesn't. But the blond is clapping, even if it is a weak sort of movement.

At the front of the room, Nott seems to grow, to swell with the noise. His smile is still there, now even wider than before.

"The time has come!" Nott shouts, his voice magically amplified to sound above the voices of those around him. "The world has ignored our cries long enough! We shall stand together and prove that we are more than radical words and deeds. We shall prove that we are the future!"

Another roar.

"We live in a parliamentary nation, my friends, and it is time for us to stand up and be heard! To prove once and for all that we are here to stay! And with your approval, my friends," Nott says, suddenly speaking more quietly and the room quiets with him. The hush is strained, though, barely held together by his influence. "With your approval, I would like to announce my candidacy for the position of Minister of Magic. Because we have to start somewhere, don't we, so why not start from the top?"

The cheers and toasts are so loud, Ron's ears are buzzing, and he listens to the voices around him battle until they gradually join together in one cheer "Nott! Nott! Nott!" and the _Snitch_ 's rafters shake with it.

Ron joins in, of course, clapping his hands in time with the beat. The cheers go on and on and Ron loses track of time, caught up in it all. Until he looks over at Malfoy and sees that the blond has left. He starts clapping again, but the rhythm is gone.

Several minutes pass before Nott's voice can be heard again. "Thank you, my friends. Thank you for your acceptance, your support." Then, with a look to the bar: "Tonight, in honor of this momentous occasion, the bar shall be open for your drinking pleasure, courtesy of me. Celebrate, for change is coming! Celebrate, for change is already here!"

Only then does Ron sit down again. The room feels too cramped all of a sudden, no longer pleasant. Too crowded, and all Ron wants to do is finish his letter and leave. He still can't, though, not without it looking suspicious.

He slowly picks up the quill again, dips the tip in the pot of ink and writes one final line, not in the cipher. It doesn't matter, though. The Inspector will know what he means.

 _Or maybe you're right to be suspicious. Maybe I am crazy. But I don't think I am. Love, your son, Ron._

With that, he picks the parchment up and stares at it for several seconds, before finally crumpling it into a ball and dropping it in his pocket. When he looks up again, musicians have appeared from somewhere and they're already fiddling away at a lively tune. Some of the tables have been cleared from the floor and dancing couples are already reeling around the confined space.

He hears a soft cough and a Ravenclaw girl, two years younger than he is, is standing in front of him. She's holding out her hand, black braids swinging around her neck.

"May I have this dance?" she asks softly.

He wants to say no, but she's smiling at him and this is one of those necessary steps towards acceptance, or so the Inspector would tell him. There are reasons why Ron is there, after all, and newly confirmed reasons why he's there now.

He takes her hand, soft and gentle in his and leads her out onto the dance floor.

It feels wrong, he thinks as they begin to move, because his entire life, he's been told that Knockturn Alley is a dangerous place, dark and forbidden, but this is normal, real, welcoming: a warm fire, free drinks, a smiling girl in his arms, and sounds of joy surrounding him.

It only takes him two dances to lose himself again.

He's tired, breathless, and sweaty when he steps out of the _Snitch_ and into the dark and curving street. The night air feels like ice on his skin and he shivers, pulling his robe more tightly around him. He's still smiling, though, and his cheeks ache with it.

"Tomorrow, Weasley?" one of the barmaids asks him, leaning out the front window. They shared two turns round the dance floor and they could have shared _more_ , he knows the look in her eyes had told him as much but there are some things he refuses to betray. He nods and keeps on walking, humming a remnant of the last song as he goes.

The alcove is two streets over and by the time he approaches it, he's no longer smiling. He's serious, all business again.

It's no more than a trash heap for the not so discerning witch or wizard and he stumbles up to it, balancing himself on the near wall, feigning intoxication. He bends over, pretending to retch, but there's no one to see him or the ball of parchment that falls from his pocket.

And then he stumbles away again, weaving his way down the street.

He doesn't look back.

He doesn't see the cat that runs out of the shadows, the way its eyes glint with more than rodent-like intelligence, or the way it grips the ball of parchment in its teeth as it disappears with a small crack.

It's not until he reaches his room that he lets himself relax again, as much as he can relax anyway. He leans back against his door, closes his eyes, and Nott's words from earlier that evening echo in his brain: there's a difference between talk and action.

"I've acted," he says to himself, the words hardly louder than a whisper. "And now I've acted."

-  
A/N: Decrypted, Ron's note to the Inspector reads: In position. Nott suspicious, but okay for moment. It's every seventh word of the main text, with every third pulled word being a decoy. Dearest and Mum being the keys.


	5. Chapter 5

The hallway is empty when Ron steals out of his room, but he's not surprised: he has yet to actually see any of his neighbors, and has only ever heard them through the walls, thumping and scuffling around like over-grown rats. But his luck doesn't hold; when he stumbles down the stairs from his flat, his grip tight on the banister because he's had too little sleep and he doesn't trust his feet to stay underneath him, the landlord, Finney, is sitting at his desk.

The hunched man eyes him for a moment, then says, "Mornin' there, Mr. Weasley."

Ron stops on the third step from the bottom and stares at the man. His bald head is shiny, reflecting the light of the candles set on top of the shelves behind him, and he's grinning at Ron, widely enough to display the three teeth that are missing from his upper gum.

"Good morning," Ron says as he starts moving again. Down another step and Finney's eyes follow him, down another two and the landlord nods his head at Ron and beckons him closer with two twitches of a gnarled hand.

Ron goes, but not before he lets his gaze slide to the door, to the dusty window at the front of the building, and the street outside. He could just leave, yes, but it would be too suspicious if he did, he thinks. As he walks to the desk he tries not to twitch and fidget, because he can think of no good reason for the landlord to be talking to him. The rent's not due yet, after all, and he hasn't reported anything amiss with his plumbing—even though he's sure that some of those creaks and groans can't be natural.

"It's a grand day, in'nit, Mr. Weasley?"

Ron nods warily. He supposes that for most of the population of Knockturn Alley, it would be considered a good day. A grand day, even. And he needs to make the world believe that he thinks it's a grand day, too, so he tries to smile.

"I wish I could be out there today, to hear Nott," he says, with what he hopes is a wistful tone. "To hear him make his announcement."

And it's not a lie, exactly, because part of him _does_ actually want to be there to hear what Nott is going to say. To hear how Nott's going to break the news of his impending candidacy to the rest of the world.

But Ron has to work at the bookshop, Saturday though it is, and for maybe the first time in his life, he's grateful to his boss for scheduling him during an event he should probably be at. For the excuse it gives him, because before he left the Ministry, the Inspector told him that he'd be safe in Knockturn Alley, but that Diagon Alley was no such haven, and that, of course, was where Nott was going to be, at the intersection between the two.

Besides that, it's not essential that he be there. The Inspector will have other eyes and ears there, on the Diagon Alley side. He might even be there himself, so there'll be no need for Ron to make a report.

"It'll be grand," Finney says again, nodding his head decisively. "One of those splendid speeches of his? A proud day for all of us, it will be."

For the moment, Finney appears to be lost in thought, so Ron seizes his opportunity and moves away from the desk. He walks across the entryway to the door, and his fingers are already wrapped around the door handle by the time the landlord speaks again—

"It'd be a proud day for your brother, too, Mr. Weasley, if he— He'd 'a liked to see things going this way, I think."

—and Ron wishes he'd been just a mite bit quicker, so he wouldn't have had to hear those words, because he _has_ to acknowledge them. He has to say, "Yes," even as he keeps himself from looking back over his shoulder, because he feels emotions flitting through his eyes, emotions he's sure that he doesn't want anyone else to see.

He keeps his voice steady. "It _is_ what he dreamed about, yes. What he lived for."

What he died for, he doesn't say.

"Aye," Finney says, and maybe he's going to keep talking, but Ron won't let another opportunity pass him by, so he tugs on the metal handle and opens the door and steps out into the street, letting it fall shut with the slap of warped wood on wood behind him.

He pauses for a moment on the stoop, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath of the bitter air, and then starts his walk to work. Day two of his cover of gainful employment, and he keeps his head down as he moves, hoping to avoid as much attention as he possibly can. He sees people's feet pause as he approaches, though, some even going so far as to take a step towards him, but no one stops him.

For that, at least, he is thankful.

There is a different feeling on the streets today, almost like he's used to feeling in the _Snitch_. A muted energy, an undercurrent of excited tension that's suffused the very air. He can hear whispers, murmured snatches of conversation as he passes by. Nott's name, more often than not, but also: " _Minister of Magic—_ " " _—announcing—_ " and the occasional " _There goes that Weasley, the young one. The one that's been in the papers._ "

He ducks his head down lower than before, so that all he can see are the cobblestones beneath his feet. The tension that he's sensing around him, he wonders briefly if it's only a reflection of what he feels on the inside, if he's committing anthropomorphism, if that's the right word for it, on the whole world, so he looks up. He'll be able to tell if he sees people's faces, he's sure. A tightness of lips, an extra edge to their smiles.

And it's there, it's real, but suddenly he doesn't care, because he recognizes where he is. Off to his right is the alcove from the night before, dark and stinking but otherwise unrecognizable in the daylight. He stops where he is, suddenly enough that the wizard behind him runs into him, and curses at him, before he sees whom, exactly, it is that he's run into.

"'M sorry, Mr. Weasley," the man says before hurrying away, but Ron hardly hears him. He's staring at the pile of rubbish, his eyes searching for the crumpled ball of paper that he'd dropped the night before.

 _It will get to me_ , the Inspector told him time and time again, his voice soft, the two of them sitting alone in the dark, cluttered office. _If it wasn't safe, I wouldn't ask you to do it, now would I' No need to worry_ , but Ron is, suddenly, because what if someone did see him drop the parchment into the pile? What if Nott had someone following him? What if the paper fell into the wrong hands? What if someone deciphered it and the game is up, Ron just doesn't know it?

It takes all of his willpower to not move towards the alcove, to start sorting through the rubbish with his bare hands, hoping, hoping that his note is not there—or maybe that it is. He can't, he knows this, because that would be suspicious, and all he's trying to do now is fit in.

He stares at the alcove for a moment longer, more than a moment, letting the stream of bodies move on by, before he manages to convince himself, with a shake of his head, that he'll know if he's been found out soon enough. Too soon, he's sure, if he has.

He starts walking again, blending back into the crowd, but he's no longer thinking about Nott and his announcement, his speech. Instead, he concentrates on not looking over his shoulder to search out eyes that might be following his movements a bit too closely. He spends his energy trying to ignore the sudden prickling at the back of his neck, and the fine red hairs there that are standing on end.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the sign for _Libris Exacto_ only a few shop fronts ahead, and for the first time he truly registers the stretch of windows across the front of the building. If the game is up, if Nott sends anyone to get him, he's sure that he'll be able to see them coming. If anyone comes, more than likely he'll be able to get away.

As he approaches the door, he sees Mrs. Chubbs (as thin as her husband is round) standing just inside, looking out into the street, and when their eyes meet, she nods at him.

He'd be safe in Knockturn Alley, the Inspector told him, and for a moment, at least, Ron feels as if he actually will be.

* * *

By the time the clock above the mantle strikes two, the shop has pretty much emptied out, and although Ron is supposed to be watching the till, he's standing by the front window, eyeing the nearly deserted street outside.

There's a witch across the street, black dress, black apron, and lumpy in all of the wrong places, running a twig-broom across her stoop. If he leans as close to the glass as he can get without pressing his nose to it, he can see a wizard with his cart at the end of the street. He sells bits and bobs, and from what Ron has seen of his stock, his philosophy seems to be that one man's rubbish is another man's treasure.

Ron's brain registers the fact that Chubbs is coming up behind him, but it's not until the other man is close enough to lay a hand on Ron's shoulder that he truly _realizes_ it, and he starts. He darts a guilty look at his employer, then at the till behind him, but when he looks back to his boss, Chubbs doesn't look upset. He pats the round of his belly, turns to Ron with a kindly smile on his face, then looks back to the window, too, apparently letting his gaze follow where Ron's had been.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—" Ron starts after a moment, when Chubbs doesn't say anything. He turns around, ready to go back to the till, and _then_ Chubbs stops him with a cluck of his tongue, a hand that approaches Ron's arm, but still doesn't touch.

"No, no, Mr. Weasley. Ron, stay." He pats his belly again. "There is no one here, no one here for you to help. Too many other things be 'appening today, they do. As you well know."

Ron nods, because it's true. The denizens of Knockturn Alley have been buzzing with their excitement all morning, and all those who think of it have been dropping a word to Ron. Congratulations mostly, the verbal equivalents of a thumbs up.

"I know," he says. "Oh, yes, I know."

"And you should be going on then, too, as everyone else down this way already has," Chubbs says. "You have just as much right to be there as any of the rest of them do. More right, if you ask me, since you be the reason for this announcement, or so the talk goes."

"I—" Ron says. He opens his mouth, closes it.

"Well, maybe not the reason, but the _impetus_ ," Chubbs continues. "The straw that broke the camels back, as the saying goes. You should be there. You should be on your way."

"I—" Ron tries again. He wants to tell Chubbs that he couldn't, he can't. There are reasons, he wants to say, but of course, he can't tell Chubbs what those reasons are, now can he?

"Now, now," Chubbs says. "I won't take no for an answer, Mr. Weasley, Ron. Not when this is what you've been working for. It's where you should be." He drops his voice to a whisper, so that only Ron can hear. "Besides, people'll notice if you aren't there, they will. And Mr. Nott, he'll want you there. You being one of his staunchest supporters and all."

Chubbs is warming to his subject, all of a sudden, and Ron knows that he spoke the truth when he said that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. If he's learned naught else about his employer in the previous 72 hours, it's that he's stubborn, and once he makes up his mind about something—hiring Ron, for instance—there's nothing that will change his mind. Especially when Ron can't give a satisfactory reason that he should.

"Okay," Ron says. He tries to smile, to look like he's grateful for this opportunity that Chubbs is giving him. And seeing that there's a satisfied glint in the round, buggy eyes, he thinks that maybe he succeeded. "Thank you, sir. I'll make up the hours—"

Chubbs just waves his hand back and forth, like he's batting at a pesky fly.

"Get on with you now," the other man continues, and he holds his arm out to the door of the shop, or maybe to the coat rack that is standing just inside of it, where Ron's robe is hanging. Then, with a decisive nod of his head, he says, "I want to hear all about it tomorrow. Those things that they won't go about printing in the _Prophet_."

And Ron feels his last hope of avoiding the speech die away, withering in his breast.

"I will," he says, and then he leaves the shop, stepping outside and onto the cobbled street.

* * *

Before he sees the crowd of witches and wizards gathered around Nott, he hears them. He hears them two streets away, a muted buzz of voices off in the distance. Hollers and shouts and muffled clapping weaving together like smoke and working their way into the sky.

Nott has already begun his speech then, Ron decides, and he can stop where he is, head back to the bookshop and tell Chubbs that he was too late, that Nott was just finishing up when he arrived. Thank you for the thought and all, but it just wasn't meant to be, apparently.

But although his pace slows, his feet don't stop moving. He just starts moving more carefully, pulling the collar of his robe up more firmly around his neck, as if he can hide in it. As if he'll be more likely to blend in.

And then he's there, on the outskirts of the crowd, down a ways from where Nott is standing, several broken arches and a solid press of magical folk separating them. There are heads, legs, whole bodies leaning out windows of upper stories of buildings. He can see Nott, though, so he must be standing on something, a box, a platform of some sort, unless some of those surrounding him are using spells to elevate him off of the ground?

Ron _knows_ that they're using an amplifying charm, because he can hear Nott just as clearly as if the tall man is standing right by his side, his voice as seductive as ever.

"And today," Nott is saying. He's not facing Ron at the moment, is instead using his hands to gesture at both sides of the crowd, those in Knockturrn Alley, and those who might have stopped to listen on the Diagon Alley side.

"And today, my friends, old and new, today, as I look around at your faces, as I look into your eyes, I am hopeful. I have great hopes for the future of the Wizarding World. Why, you may ask. Why, in this world, where former darkness is still a too recent memory, where the works of Voldemort still taint our lives, what hope could you possibly have? Listen and I shall tell you, my friends."

Ron doesn't even realize that he's moving forward until he passes underneath the first of the broken archways, a shadow falling over his eyes. Those around him are parting to let him through, too, but he's not sure if it's because of who he is, what he represents, or whether he looks imposing enough that they don't want to get into any arguments with him.

"I have hope for the future," Nott continues, "because when I look around at those surrounding me today, I see strength. I see power here, I can feel it in the air, I can. Ripe, my friends, ready to be used and wielded, not hidden away. Our strength is not meant to be subverted as a means of appeasing the Muggles out _there_."

He flips his hand in the direction of the _Leaky Cauldron_ , Muggle London in general. It doesn't really matter, though, Ron supposes as he makes himself stop moving forward a good fifteen paces from Nott's stage, for a stage he can now see that it is. It's decorated in innocuous colors that can't be related to one particular Hogwarts house.

If such affiliations still matter, that is.

He's close enough to see the sweat that's beaded on Nott's forehead, the faces of the witches and wizards standing beyond the boundary of Knockturn Alley. There is a small crowd, solid, of ten or fifteen, with more flickering past, some pausing for a moment, two, more, then leaving again just as suddenly.

"As your Minister, this I promise you," Nott says. "I promise you that in the Wizarding World, it will be the Wizard that comes first."

More hollers and claps, more noise, and for a moment, even with the amplifying charm, Nott's voice is nearly drowned out. He laughs at the noise, Ron can see him throw his head back, even if he can't really hear the sound. Then the hands come out again, motioning for the crowd to quiet, and it works. Ron can't help but be amazed; even outside the confines of the _Snitch_ it _works_.

"Wizards will come first, be they pureblood or not, Muggleborn or not. Our very way of life is at stake, my friends, and as your Minister, I will protect that. I will protect _you_."

What he says isn't true, of course; their way of life _isn't_ at stake, and the only danger it's in—as far as Ron can see, anyway—is from Nott himself, but as he listens to the Slytherin's words, he feels himself wanting to believe. He can feel the belief radiating off of the tight press of bodies surrounding him, and he wants to believe like they do. He wants to feel the joy that they do.

"My name is Theodore Nott," Nott says, an air of finality in his voice, "and I ask you to elect me as your next Minister of Magic. A vote for me, my friends, will be a vote for wizards everywhere."

Then he steps off of the platform and into the crowd, surrounded by four of his hulking guards. He's only on the ground for a moment, though, before there's the snapping sound of apparation, and Ron is left staring at the empty spot along with everyone else. The crowd surges forward, as if to fill the sudden hole, and Ron is carried along with it, just for a moment, until he manages to anchor himself against the wall again.

But it's too late, because from his new vantage-point he can see the two faces that, more than anything, he doesn't want to see. Fifteen, twenty paces away still, out in Diagon Alley, but there they are: Harry and Hermione, the both of them with their arms crossed over their chests, the both of them frowning.

But before Ron can move, before he remembers that if you see something, more than likely it can see you, before he registers that he's a good half a head taller than those around him, with red hair that shines like a beacon, his eyes have met Harry's and locked.

…and what he sees there is not something he ever thought to see on his friend's face, at least not directed at him. Hatred, disgust. Flashing green eyes, like Ron's only ever seen directed at Voldemort.

His breathing quickens, his heart is pounding so heavily in his chest, all of a sudden, that he's afraid it will break its way out of his very ribcage. He feels faint, light headed, and he swallows rapidly once, three times. Then Harry looks away, turns to Hermione and raises his hand in Ron's direction, and he's no longer frozen.

He ducks away immediately, without looking to Hermione because he can't face the accusation in her eyes, too, and before he's gone five steps, he succumbs to the temptation to apparate, so he does. A crack and he's gone and an instant later, he's standing on the street outside his apartment house, shaking, with what he's not quite sure, but he's trembling so hard that his teeth are chattering.

He pushes his way by two witches, ignoring their startled exclamations behind him, and the door to the building opens in front of him with a muttered " _alohamora_ ". He lets it slam shut behind him as he takes the stairs two at a time. He's still shaking by the time he makes it to his room, and it doesn't stop even after the door closes behind him. He stands still for a moment, then moves to his bed, his legs unsteady, but he manages to keep himself upright until he reaches the mattress. Then he collapses with such a force that the air is driven out of his lungs.

Ron closes his eyes as he inches forward, crawling over the rough blanket until he feels the thin pillow beneath his head, and he clutches it to him.

In his minds eye, he can still see the pinched hatred on Harry's face, the look in his eyes, but despite the temptation to open his own, he keeps them closed, trying as desperately as he can to forget.

* * *

Ron wakes up to a dark, cold room, and night has fallen, he sees, when he flips his head on the pillow so that he can look out the window. For a moment, he thinks that he can see stars in the sky, but they could just as easily be spots of dirt on the glass, light against the blackness outside. He blinks, and that's when he notices the folded slip of parchment on the pillow in front of his nose. He sits up immediately, backing away from it as quickly as if it was a rapid Hippogriff, but he manages to stop just short of the edge of the bed.

His breathing is quick again, his pulse pounding in his ears, as he reaches out towards it slowly. In the darkness, he sees a dark lump of wax sealing it, the bumps of a seal raised on its surface, and he calms a bit.

The Inspector then.

Gingerly, he picks the piece of parchment up off of his pillow and rubs his thumb over the wax, feeling the dip of the crescent moon underneath his skin, before running his fingers underneath the loose edge of the paper in order to break it. He unfolds the note, and in the center of the parchment, he sees two sentences:

 _Bravo, Weasley. You really had us all fooled, didn't you?_

It's only the first sentence that matters, though. The Inspector received his message and it was successfully translated.

Ron almost smiles. Something in his chest loosens, causing his shoulders to slump, and it's relief, he thinks. As relieved as he can feel without waking up back at the Burrow, in his own bed, and realizing that the last three years have been a dream.

He stares at the note for several moments, until his concentration is shattered by the tapping of an owl beak at his window. White and fluffy, he'd recognize that owl anywhere: Hedwig. She's perched outside, talons digging into the rotting wood of the sill, and her wide eyes are blinking knowingly. She's looking at him reproachfully, he thinks, but whether it's that she doesn't like Knockturn Alley, or she's imitating Harry's displeasure, he can't tell.

The walk to the window only takes two steps, but his chest and shoulders area already tight by the time he reaches it. The window squeaks as he pushes it up, paint crumbling around his fingers from the unaccustomed pressure.

She hops inside and sticks her leg out so that he can untie the roll of parchment there, which he does. Thankfully, she doesn't wait around for a treat, because he doesn't have anything to give her, not even a crumb. She's gone from sight before he can blink, before he can say, "Thank you."

Without bothering to close the window, Ron moves back to the bed and sits again, his legs as boneless as they've been yet that day. It's more difficult to open this letter, not because the knot on the string tying it shut is caught, but because he doesn't want to. He knows what will be in this letter, after all, and it's not something that he wants to read.

And not just because he suddenly realize that secretly (even from himself) he's been hoping that Malfoy was right. Hoping that Harry and Hermione weren't commenting because deep down they _knew_ that there was more to the story, that he wouldn't just up and betray them like that, no matter what they heard elsewhere.

That unconscious hope is gone now, he knows it. His heart aches with the knowledge.

Slowly, carefully, he slides the string off of the parchment, and unrolls it. He may have been expecting paragraph upon paragraph of betrayed ranting, but there are only a few sentences.

 _Today I saw you— I saw you, Ron, and I—_

 _You— I have no words._

 _I saw you and I realized that I don't know you anymore. As of today, Ron Weasley, you are dead to me._

And Ron laughs, laughs as he feels the sharp stabs of pain in his heart, like several daggers all twisting simultaneously, because the only other option is to cry. Which he's already doing, he realizes, because his cheeks are wet, dripping. He's laughing and crying and if the walls weren't so paper thin, he thinks that he'd howl, scream, throw himself on the floor and kick and yell.

All he can do is bury his face in the thin pillow again, letting it muffle the laughter-filled sobs until he can bring them under his control.

It takes longer than he wants it to.

* * *

The _Snitch_ is pleasantly full when Ron walks in the door, quiet and warm, filled with laughter and friendly chatter, and for once there's not a hush when people take notice of him. For once, for the first time, it's as if he's expected to be there, just another part of the regular scenery.

Two hours before, that might have made him smile. Now he just scans the room, his eyes searching for the blond that he _knows_ must be here, because he's not quite sure what he'll do if he's not.

But he is. On their second circuit of the room, Ron's eyes finally light on Malfoy, his back to the door. He's sitting with a woman, black-haired and familiar looking. Pansy Parkinson, Ron realizes suddenly, and for a moment, he's tempted to turn around, to forget this, but no. He can't.

He takes a deep breath then begins stalking across the room, hardly noticing the serving girls that smile at him and the patrons that call out his name, or raise a mug of ale in his direction. And Pansy warns Malfoy that he's coming, apparently, because by the time he reaches the little table, the blond has turned to look at him, gray eyes narrowed.

"It was proving to be such a pleasant evening, too," the other man says, a sneer on his lips, and Ron hears Pansy laugh at that, but it's not nearly as unfriendly a sound as it was through all of their years at Hogwarts. She actually looks as if it's the punch line of a joke that the three of them are sharing together.

"Ronald Weasley," she says when he draws close enough for her to speak without raising her voice. "Draco was just filling me in on the details of your recent treachery. Really, I must say that I'm proud of you. But if any more of your lot show up here, I may just have to start changing my opinion of the loyal Gryffindors, and quite frankly, that's not something I'm particularly keen to do."

"She's just back from Albania today," Malfoy says, "and really, I was just telling her that she shouldn't trust a word you say. That you're up to—"

Ron can't let him finish, not when the smile is fading from Pansy's face. Not when he's too emotionally drained to defend himself—and he should have thought of that before he came, now shouldn't he have? But he needed to get out of his room, get fresh air. Go to the one place he belongs as much as he belongs anywhere in this new life of his.

He tosses Harry's now crumpled parchment down onto the table between the two Slytherins, and while Pansy does reach for it, it's Malfoy who picks it up first. His eyes widen—whether at realizing whom, exactly, the note is from, or the contents, Ron can't tell—and then he carelessly tosses it to Pansy, who also reads it through. Her lips mouth the words, and they're all the more real for it, Ron thinks as he watches her.

Malfoy and Pansy stare at each other for several long moments, communicating things with their eyes like Ron, Harry and Hermione used to be able to communicate. Then Malfoy turns to Ron. The both of them do actually, but it's Malfoy's eyes that hold Ron's, as if searching out the truth in the pain there.

"Now do you believe?" Ron asks quietly, sounding defeated even to his own ears. He's too tired to play games, too tired to dance around Malfoy, but Malfoy doesn't say anything to him.

Instead he waves over one of the serving girls and says, "Get Weasley here one of his usual, yes?" Then, with another look to Ron. "Better make it something harder. A shot of the strongest thing you've got behind your counter."

He flicks his hand, shooing her away, and at that, Pansy pulls out the third chair at the table for Ron to sit in. She pats the tabletop, too, encouraging him, and for the second time that night, Ron wants to laugh.

It figures, doesn't it, that when he needs comfort in this new life of his, he turns to those he used to need comfort from.

He sits and Pansy—she must have changed in the years since graduation, too—actually reaches out to pat his hand. Malfoy reads the note again, before tossing it back to Ron. He crosses his arms over his chest, quite obviously studying Ron, weighing things, but what, Ron can't tell. He just stares back.

"It always comes back to Potter in the end, doesn't it," Malfoy says finally, and Ron is pretty sure that it's as much acknowledgement that Ron's façade might actually be legit as he is ever going to get.

"Yes," Pansy agrees. "Poor Potter, faced with yet another betrayal to his poor, perfect world." She laughs. "Someday he'll realize that the world doesn't revolve around him. But today, apparently, is not that day."

It says something, Ron thinks, as to the depths of his hurt that he doesn't immediately leap to Harry's defense. Not that he could have, of course, but that he doesn't want to. Not right at the moment.

Also, it's true.

"Always back to Harry in the end," Ron agrees, and when his drink arrives, he downs it in one gulp, hardly listening as Malfoy orders him another.


	6. Chapter 6

That night, Ron dreams of Harry. An angry Harry, who's standing in front of him, green eyes hard, flashing just like they were after Nott's speech. His arms are crossed over his chest, his mouth is set in a straight, thin line, and he spits out the words of his letter— _I don't know you anymore. You are dead to me_ —over and over again.

In his dream, Harry calls him _Weasley_.

He tries to protest. He tries to speak. He tries to reach out with a hand that seems to fade into nothingness the closer it comes to Harry, and he can't grasp at the sleeve of Harry's robe, he can't touch his friend. But then his voice is there again and he says, "Harry, Harry, it's not what you think," but Hermione is at Harry's side and her lips are at Harry's ear and she's whispering, "Yes, Harry, it is. It's exactly what you think. He's nothing but a lie."

Ron can only watch as she curls her hand around Harry's elbow and leads him away, away from Ron and his explanations and his truth. Leads him away, the both of them fading into nothingness, just like Ron's hand had, and he can't do anything but call after them, watch them go. He sobs, "No!" and when he wakes up he can hear the word echoing off of the walls of his room, still ringing in his ears.

He breathes heavily through parted lips, dry and cracked, and his tongue feels too large for his mouth. His nose is dripping, as are his eyes, tears trickling down his cheeks and dampening the pillow beneath his head. He raises his arm and wipes the sleeve of his jumper across his face, the rough fibers stinging already raw skin. He closes his eyes again and tries to swallow, but he's trembling now with the force of the dream and his breath catches in his throat and suddenly he can't lie down anymore, he can't breathe, he's going to pass out, vomit…

He sits up, his knees immediately coming to his chest, his arms holding onto them as tightly as he can, skin and muscle pressed between bone. He wants the pain, wishes that it could be sharper, bruising. Physical pain he can handle, it's the mental that he's no longer so sure about.

 _You are dead to me_.

"Harry." Ron's lips form the name, but he doesn't actually say it. His breath is still ragged, rattling around in his chest, even if it's coming slightly easier now. He means to say that he's sorry, but the words that come out are: "I can't do this anymore."

* * *

He doesn't mean it, of course.

Of course he doesn't mean it, and he tells himself that over and over again on Sunday as he leaves his room, as he walks through the mid-day bustle of the streets to the _Snitch_ , as he stands in shadows of the same doorway he used his first day there, less than a week ago, a lifetime gone by.

He whispers it, cracked words barely making it through his lips, as loud as he can without someone overhearing: "I don't mean it. I am doing this."

He swallows, says it again. "I am."

Despite the whispered tone, the words sound feeble to his ears, rote, hollow reassurances of the same variety as 'it's going to be okay, really,' even when one knew it wasn't. He'd said those words to his mum, in the days before Percy had been Kissed. Nothing had been okay then, since.

In his head, his dream still echoes. When he closes his eyes, he can see Harry and Hermione walking away, but when he opens them, he can picture them standing just down the street, twenty paces ahead. Harry's gesturing at him, pointing him out to Hermione, eyes flashing with hatred.

Ron shakes his head sharply and the vision clears.

He wants to walk across the street, to go into the _Snitch_ , to get settled and drink his ale and see the faces that are looking progressively friendlier the more time he spends there. He _should_ do all of that, because it's what comprises the 'this' that he's doing, but his mind or body seems to be convinced that he's back at square one in every sense of the word.

Because, like on that very first day, he can't move.

He tries, oh he tries. He counts to five, then ten. He murmurs, "Now, now, _now_." His muscles tense in preparation of movement, straining forward, but it's as if someone has cast a _Petrificus Totalus_ curse on him, like his feet are rooted in cement.

And every time he does manage to shuffle one foot forward, his stomach lurches. His throat tightens. It's as if a steel trap has settled around his chest, squeezing him until he goes cold, until sweat prickles the back of his neck, beads on his forehead, slicks his palms.

He leans back against the wall behind him, catching his breath the best he can as he steels himself for another try. It's easy to do that, to stand there unobserved, watching from a distance, so for a minute, maybe two, he lets himself do so. Watches as a witch enters the pub, as a wizard leaves. Watches the movement of the bodies behind the diamond-paned windows, imagining he can hear the laughter.

Stands there as a crone walks by on the side of the alley closest to his alcove, feels his breath catch as she looks in, meeting his eyes, and then he's cold for an entirely different reason, because he shouldn't be standing there.

Standing there watching, like he is, is suspicious.

It's a mistake, and he can't afford to make mistakes, not even now. Especially not now, no matter that it would be easier if he did, because then this would all be over. He could go home to the Burrow, he could hug his mum, tell the truth.

He could single-handedly lose the war on Nott before it's even really begun.

With that knowledge, he braces himself against the wall behind him, turning his wrist so that he can press his fingertips against the rough stone. Then he pushes as hard as he can, using the extra bit of momentum to actually get out into the street.

Now that he's moving, he means to walk directly to the door of the pub. He means to go inside, to get his ale and find to his table, and maybe Malfoy will be there, maybe Pansy will be, and he'll be able to laugh off the night before. To say he doesn't need Harry, doesn't need his approval, because he doesn't. He doesn't.

But that thought makes him stop in the middle of the street, an island in the middle of a sluggish stream of people, and his feet are rooted again. Again, he can't move, but he can't stay _there_ any more than he could stay back in his alcove, so he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, murmurs "just go," and turns on his heel, heading back in the direction of his room.

As he walks, he justifies. He tells himself it's okay to do this, that he shouldn't be seen at the _Snitch_ every day anyway. He shouldn't be seen to be _too_ interested in Nott's actions, words, deeds. The Inspector told him so, more than once, but the justifications sound empty now as he thinks them.

His head falls forward as he walks the well-known path, his eyes staring unseeing at the cobblestones beneath his feet. He breathes in deeply through his nose, breathing out again through parted lips.

And as he walks, he acknowledges. This is the truth: he feels as if a part of him died inside with Harry's letter, with Harry's lack of trust. He doesn't need Harry's support, he tells himself, he really doesn't, but for today, at least, he thinks that he can let himself grieve.

* * *

One day turns into two, and two into three, and it's late, only about ten minutes until closing on Wednesday when the old man shows up at the shop. He's hunched over, with a beard that stretches all the way down to the clean floor, and eyes that twinkle behind rectangular glasses. He asks for Ron.

"Weasley," he rasps. "Is he here? Is he working today?"

Ron can hear him from where he's crouched down on the floor of the back room, unloading a box, and he freezes; he turns his head very slowly so that he can look at the man through the beaded curtain covering the doorway. He doesn't look dangerous, Ron thinks as he studies him. Doesn't look like one of Nott's goons, and he doesn't exactly look like someone in the Ministry's employ either.

Still, looks can be deceiving. Most of the world is convinced that he's the living embodiment of that statement, after all. Also, there are very few reasons for someone to come asking for him at the bookshop, even fewer of which might be considered good. He puts his hand in his pocket, curling his fingers around the wand hidden there and tries to decide if he should make a bolt for the back exit. Apparate.

If he's at risk at all, the Inspector told him more than once, it's better to play it safe than sorry. If he plays the part right, he said, Ron will have reason to appear overly paranoid. People will understand. He grips the wand more tightly, but he hesitates too long.

Mrs. Chubbs says, "Yes, he's here. He's just in back, doing all of the unloading these poor old knees can't do anymore." She calls, "Ronald!"

There's a shrill edge to her voice, a fond sharpness, and it hits Ron like a punch to his gut. He wobbles on the balls of his feet, suddenly dizzy, because she sounds exactly like his mother used to when she caught him in the act of doing something he oughtn't. Unconsciously, he raises his hand to his cheek, where his mother slapped him, was it only the week before? The mark is several days gone, but when he traces the finger lightly over his skin, he pretends he can still feel it.

"Ron, Ronald," Mrs. Chubbs calls again, and Ron shakes his head back and forth, clearing away the memory. He stands up, pushes his way through the strings of beads and smiles warily at the old man. He smiles back, gap-toothed. There's something familiar about the grin, though. About the curve of lips. Ron blinks, trying to place it.

"Weasley," he rasps. "There you are, my boy. There you are. You won't know me, I shouldn't think, but I knew your brother, Percy, years ago. I guess you could say I've made following his career something of my life's work."

Then, deliberately, he winks at Ron, and suddenly Ron knows who it is that's speaking to him. Who it is that's hiding behind the thin cheeks, the gray hair.

He knows and somehow, through the tang of fear at the back of his throat, through the ice that is suddenly running through his veins, freezing him, he manages to nod. He manages an almost real, genuine smile. It fades quickly, though, because there are even fewer good reasons for the Inspector to be there, standing in front of him than, well, anyone else who might choose to seek Ron out.

That knowledge paralyzes him, he shivers with it and he can only watch as the Inspector turns to Mrs. Chubbs and says, "Is your young assistant about done for the day? Would you mind terribly if I spirited him away?" He laughs, a thin sound.

Ron can hear himself chuckling too, as if from a distance, and it borders on hysterical. He looks at Mrs. Chubbs, expecting her to say 'No', almost wanting her to because he doesn't think he wants to know why the Inspector is there, but she doesn't. She says yes. She's nodding.

"Aye," she says, gesturing at the empty shop. "Go on. Get on with you. We're 'bout done here anyway."

Pointing in the direction of the back room, where his robe is hanging, Ron says, "Let me just go—" and then his throat closes up again, the fear still there, still growing, because for the Inspector to come to him like this…

The Inspector nods, flicks his hand in the direction of the beaded curtain, still smiling that gap-toothed smile of his, and Ron goes. He closes his eyes as soon as he steps through, takes a deep breath as soon as he's out of sight, and rests his forehead against the wall by his robe, letting the cool of the plaster creep over his suddenly overheated skin.

Something's wrong. Something's gone wrong. Ron knows it. The woman who spotted him hovering across the street from the _Snitch_ , maybe. Maybe she's told Nott. Maybe he's slipped up in some other way, even though he can't think how. It's over, done with, he's lost the war, failed…

He breathes in, out, once, twice, and then he reaches up blindly to pull his robe off the hook.

When he steps back out into the main room of the shop, he nods sharply to the Inspector and leads the way to the door, opening it for him. Just like he would have back at the Ministry. Except at the Ministry, he wouldn't have had to worry about shutting the beard in the door by mistake.

The Inspector doesn't speak once they're outside, not until he's led Ron away from the main street, down back pathways that Ron hasn't yet had a chance to explore. He leads him to a dark building, as dilapidated looking as any down Knockturn Alley, and then he stops at a door. Three taps of the Inspector's wand on the rotting wood, a murmured word, and it swings open.

They step inside.

The room is empty but for two stools and a lopsided table, an ash-strewn fireplace. The boards of the floor feel thin underneath Ron's feet, a bit of bounce and give to them that floor boards just should not have. There are holes in the walls, plaster cracked and powdered, and Ron is pretty sure he can feel a draft coming from somewhere. He rubs his hands over his arms, trying to warm the gooseflesh away.

"We'll be safe here," the Inspector says, and he no longer sounds like an old man; the familiar soft voice is back. It's not as soft as it is in Ron's memory, though, and when he meets the Inspector's eyes, they look familiar and sad, but hard, too. Harder than Ron has seen directed at him before.

He blinks, and when he closes his eyes he flashes back to Harry—hardness, hatred—so he opens them again, quickly, and reminds himself: _memory_. _That_ Harry is just a memory and the Inspector is real. He's real, here with Ron, standing in front of him.

And Ron still doesn't know why.

"What-?" he starts, but the rest of the question won't come. Too many words are trying to bubble out, but he's not really sure what he wants to ask. What, why, how. There is one thing that he really does have to know, though, so he swallows and forces the words out.

"Has something happened?"

The Inspector stares at Ron for a moment, then turns away and walks over to one of the chairs without answering. He's not moving like an old man anymore. His shoulders are no longer hunched, his stride is brisk. When he sits down, the chair rocks underneath his weight. After he's settled, he looks at Ron again, but he doesn't motion for Ron to take the other chair. He says, "Has something happened? I don't know, Ron. Why don't you tell me."

And he knows, Ron realizes. He knows that Ron hasn't been to the Snitch for three days, not since the night with Malfoy. Not since the… letter. Unable to meet the Inspector's gaze, he says, "You heard about Harry's note then."

"Yes, Ron, I did."

He sounds almost… happy about it, too. Like Ron's whole fucking world hadn't crumbled around him when he'd read Harry's words.

"Yes, I heard about Harry's note," he continues. "I heard about it from Harry himself, actually, during a lovely meeting that lasted for well over an hour. He used an astonishing number of colorful words to curse the day you decided to sit with him on the Hogwarts Express, the day he decided you were his friend, and even the day you were born. A brilliant time was had by all, I assure you."

Ron doesn't say anything; he's not sure what there _is_ to say to that. At his sides, his fists are clenched, nails digging into palms. He bites down on his lip, not nearly hard enough to draw blood, but with enough force to let the sharp press hold his attention.

When the Inspector continues, his voice is softer, but he sounds more detached. Ron's not sure whether it's an improvement or not.

"What I want to know, Ron, is whether you're going to let Harry be a problem. It's been three days since you showed your face in the _Snitch_ , three days in which you could have been working your way into Nott's good graces, and what do you do? You stand across the street, watching people come and go." He pauses. "That's unacceptable, Ron, and I shouldn't have had to come here and tell you that."

"But _you_ were the one who told me I shouldn't go to the _Snitch_ every day anyway," Ron says, fully aware that he sounds petulant, yet unable to stop himself. He swallows, then looks the Inspector in the eyes, because he knows his friend is in there somewhere. He knows it. "Harry, he told me I was dead to him."

"And you want me to do what?"

The Inspector barks the question out, then he laughs just a little, closing his eyes. He says, "I can't be the friend you want me to be here, Ron, nor can I be the friend I want to be. There are more important things at stake here than friendship. You had to know that something like this would happen. You should have known."

Ron should have, he knows, and he did. But knowing is different than acknowledging or living the reality. "I did," Ron says. "I just didn't think…"

"That Harry wouldn't trust you," the Inspector finishes, still harshly, still detached, but there's a little more warmth there than there was before. "I know, Ron, but together we've spent the last year making sure that no one would, not even Harry." He pauses. "And the fact that he doesn't, Ron, that should be considered a good thing. If you can fool him, you can fool anyone. Even Nott, who, need I remind you, is the one that needs to be fooled."

"I know."

Ron looks up at the Inspector again, and sees that he's getting a little fuzzy around the edges: a flash of gray-brown hair through the salt-and-pepper strands, a peek of bare chin through the beard. The Inspector seems to sense it too, because he pulls the flask away from his hip and takes a swallow. The image solidifies again.

"I just didn't expect it to hurt so much. I expected Harry to hate me, I did." Ron pauses, swallowing. "I just didn't expect him to mean it."

The Inspector nods sagely.

"But he does, oh, he does."

He states it matter-of-factly, no matter that he has to know that the words are cutting into Ron like knives. "And you know what, I couldn't have planned this better than if I'd asked Harry to write that note myself—which I didn't, I promise you. But think of it this way: now, you don't need to wonder what he's thinking of you. You're going to say that you wouldn't have been, but I know you, Ron. Subconsciously you would have been evaluating every action you took: is this the one that's going to make Harry lose faith in me? This one? Now, you don't have to wonder anymore."

"Because he already hates me."

"You no longer have anything to lose."

And he's right, Ron knows he is. He just wishes that the truth didn't have to make him feel so dead inside.

He nods.

"Good," the Inspector says, he slaps his thigh with something resembling glee. The gap-toothed grin is back, and Ron can tell that the conversation is winding down. "Now, when you leave here, I expect you to go to the _Snitch_. I expect you to have one drink, at the very least, and if Nott happens to show his face, I expect you to find some way of talking to him. When the time comes, Ron, you need to be in his inner circle. The Wizarding World needs you there."

Again, Ron nods. "Nothing left to lose," he says.

It's the Inspector's turn to nod, to echo the words. They stare at each other for a few moments, and that's it, the end. Two weeks ago, even, they would have ended the meeting with friendly small talk, inquiries about families and other assorted pleasantries. It won't be so tonight. The Inspector stands, walks to the door, and says, "Wait five minutes, then you can leave."

Ron looks down at the floor, not wanting to watch his only ally in this world of his—friend or not—walk away. But the Inspector doesn't leave immediately. Nor does he turn around.

"Aside from this one thing, Ron, you've been doing better than I could have hoped. I just want you to know that. And I trust you'll do what needs to be done, no matter what needs to be done. I trust you."

Then he's gone and Ron stares at the empty fireplace until it's time for him to go.

* * *

The _Snitch_ again, a half an hour later.

Ron doesn't hesitate this time as he walks down the cobbled street outside, not even as he veers through the stream of people heading in the other direction, as he dodges, stops, then moves forward again. He doesn't hesitate until he's actually at the door, curling his hand around the handle, pulling it open, but he's not paralyzed like he was before. It's just a moment, a breath; today, it's easy.

Today, it's hard for him to believe that three days ago he wasn't able to do something as simple as this.

He steps through the doorway.

Only when he's inside does he let himself truly stop, because it's only when he's inside that he realizes everything is different. Not the pub itself—that's the same as it's been every time he's come: warmth, voices, alcohol, wood burning on the hearth across the room. _It's_ all the same, but nothing else is and it takes him a few moments, a few breaths to realize why, what exactly has changed. But then he does.

It's him.

It's like he's taken a step back. It's as if, suddenly, he's watching himself live, rather than doing the actual living. He's not feeling the cut of Harry's words anymore. He's feeling numb, detached, and at the same time, he's feeling more at ease in this life than he has yet.

Everything is different, yes, but he's also pretty sure that it's better.

In that instant, he thinks that the Inspector might have been right. Maybe Harry's letter really _was_ something he needed. Maybe he needed it to be the knife it apparently was, cutting through all of the hopes and expectations he was unwittingly harboring.

Because that's what it's done. He's free now and while it doesn't feel good, per se, he feels, well, lighter. More focused.

He has nothing left to lose.

The door opens behind him again and Ron realizes that he's been standing in one place for too long now, even to do a survey of the room, so he begins walking to the bar. And as he walks, he discovers something else: apparently he's genuinely been missed. He's being greeted with smiles, nods of the head, folk with familiar faces reaching out to clasp at his hands, his elbows.

Sympathetic voices are saying: "We heard about Potter." "He don't know what he be doing, Sir." "Never worth the hype, he wasn't, and so I always said."

He should be pulling back, he thinks. He should be worried, he thinks, that apparently the whole room knows about the contents of his letter from Harry, about how they found out—Malfoy? Pansy? Someone sitting at one of the nearby tables three nights ago? Close enough to overhear? To read over one of their shoulders?—but he's not. There's that detachment again. Numbness again, and maybe he really has taken the Inspector's words to heart, because he doesn't feel any need to pull away. He murmurs a few 'Thank You's, shakes a few hands, smiles tiredly, and again he feels more in tune with what he's supposed to be doing here than he has before.

Again, it's easier.

The bartender has his ale ready for him when he gets to the bar, just as Ron has the right number of coins in the palm of his hand ready to drop on the counter. His normal seat has been taken already, but on his quick scan of the room, he notices two things: no Malfoy or Pansy in sight and an empty table off in one corner. He's grateful for both things.

He's halfway through his pint of ale when Nott arrives, and he watches as the other man sits down at a quickly emptied table by the fire, flanked by his bodyguards. One of the barmaids brings a pint glass over to him, something steaming, and sets it down on the table.

Nott drinks.

Ron watches.

Apparently Nott feels Ron's gaze on him—although how he's able to pinpoint its source, Ron doesn't know, given that a good portion of the room is staring at Nott—because when he looks up again, he looks directly at Ron. Their eyes meet for several seconds, maybe ten, and then Ron raises his glass in Nott's direction.

Immediately afterwards, he looks down again. There is a flutter of something that's not detachment in his chest—Fear? Nervousness? Actual feeling?—and he takes another gulp of his drink. One more swallow like that and he'll have to get himself another round.

Suddenly, the room quiets and when Ron looks up to see why, he sees Nott walking towards him, not quite stalking, not quite gliding, but he's moving as if he owns the room, and he does, he does. Ron knows he does.

He looks down at the empty chair across the table from him just as Nott's fingers curl around the back, pulling it out. He sits, his bodyguards moving into place behind him: that wall, again, between him and Nott and the rest of the world.

He doesn't smile at Nott, just watches him until the other man speaks.

"You're still here."

"I am," Ron says. "I'm still here."

"Dear Pansy told me about the letter you'd had," Nott continues after a moment of studying Ron, probably of trying to divine Ron's true motives. Again. But he won't be able to, of this Ron is suddenly sure, because he's done a good job at making himself into this… traitor. A good job. He's fooled Harry, after all.

Because he's got nothing left to lose.

Ron nods.

"She says that you were pretty torn up about it. She says you came here, showed the letter to her and Malfoy, and then you got drunk. You haven't been seen here since."

Ron nods again.

"I thought maybe you'd gone back to your old life," Nott continues. "I thought maybe you'd realized that this wasn't just some game. I thought that maybe you'd decided the stakes were too high."

The stakes will never be too high, but there is no way that Ron can tell Nott that, so he settles for a weak chuckle.

"I'm here," he says. "I told you my first night here, I gave up my life for this cause. You want to see the proof?" He pulls the letter out of his pocket. It's just a crumpled ball of parchment now so he tosses it across the table towards Nott. It lands without bouncing and it takes Nott a few moments to decide to pick it up.

He does though, finally, and Ron watches Nott read it. Then Nott hands it back to him and Ron folds it nicely again along the original creases, sticking it back in his pocket.

When Nott doesn't seem inclined to say anything, Ron says, "I won't deny that I was upset when I came here Saturday. I'd hoped, maybe, that after I joined you, Harry'd start to see the sense in what we're doing, in what we believe. If I believed, I thought, maybe he'd… I'd hoped…"

He takes his last swallow of ale, then sets the glass back down on the table, tracing his finger around the base.

"I'm not here for me," Ron says, and for the first time in a week, he decides he might be better off telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so he does. "And I'm not here just because of my brother, either. I'm here for all of us." He flicks his hand in the direction of the rest of the room, Knockturn Alley, England at large. "I'm here to do what I can to save the world."

He is.

Nott doesn't say anything in response, just holds Ron's gaze and Ron doesn't look away. He doesn't feel any urge to look away.

Finally, Nott nods. "Okay," he says, like maybe he actually believes Ron. Like he's starting to, like Malfoy was starting to on Saturday night.

And Ron feels like an elastic band all of a sudden, like one that's been snapped across the room, because one moment he's still got that detached, distanced feeling, and the next he's firmly back in reality, living his life rather than watching it being lived.

One moment he's watching himself do what he needs to do, and the next he's actually doing it.

"Okay," Ron says, watching as Nott takes a drink. "Okay, then. Good."


	7. Chapter 7

_Okay_ , Nott says, and everything changes again.

Not that first night, of course, and not the next, but by the third night word has spread and when Ron opens the door and steps into the _Snitch_ , everything is different. It's subtle: an extra tendril of warmth in the room, where he didn't realize there was a chill before; a nod of greeting, of acknowledgement from one of those that Ron has come to think of as Nott's lackeys; a smile from someone who wasn't smiling at him before.

 _Okay_ , Nott says, and no matter that Ron knows that Nott's still suspicious, that he still doesn't trust Ron, it's a tacit admission that he hasn't found any reason not to trust him, either. _Okay_ , and with that one word he opens up an invisible door that Ron wasn't even aware was there, invites Ron through, and accepts him, grudgingly, into his outer circle.

The Inspector, Ron thinks, will be proud, because now, suddenly, no matter how tenuous and fragile the bond, Ron truly belongs where he is. He is _in_ , and on the sixth night, as he sits at a table closer to the fireplace than he has before, he thinks, I can work with this. I can do this.

And for the first time, maybe, since he stopped talking theories and possibilities in the Inspector's office late at night, after everyone else had already left the building, he truly believes that he can.

* * *

The sun has already set by the time Ron arrives at the _Snitch_ on the seventh night, and he can't stop his shivering even as he steps into the heat of the pub's main room. It feels almost too warm, the air too sticky and thick after the cold, crisp of the outside, but he welcomes it, just as it has begun in the past week, almost, to truly welcome him.

Nott is standing on his usual table down by the fireplace, and as Ron turns to look at him, he takes a drink from a mug, a long, deep swallow, before handing it back to one of his goons. His upper lip is covered with foam, though, and as Ron watches, as the whole room watches, Nott wipes his sleeve across his mouth. Then, with a quick, sudden movement, he drops his arms back down to his sides and the flames in the fireplace surge behind him, licking and blackening the bricks, drawing all eyes back to him.

"Yes, every day our numbers grow," Nott says, apparently continuing whatever it was that he was saying before Ron arrived. "Every day, my friends, I see new faces in our midst, tonight included, and that, my brothers and sisters, both new and old, brings me _great joy_. As I have said before, it makes my heart _glad_."

Applause comes from all corners of the room, but with a wave of his hand, a flick of his wrist, Nott silences it. The energy in the room ratchets higher still.

"And it is to you-yes, you, those of you who are new to us tonight-that I am going to speak for the next few moments."

Nott runs his hand through his black hair, mussing it, letting it fall in clumps back down around his face, and he begins pacing the table: three small steps to one end, six back to the other. It's a moment before he speaks again, so Ron takes the opportunity to glance around the room, to try to spot an open chair, because since he arrived, two more wizards have entered the pub and the area by the doorway is getting crowded. He sees Malfoy over by the far wall, huddled in one of the seven corners, but for once he's not staring at Ron, and he's not looking at Nott either. Instead, he's staring down at his table, at his drink.

As Ron makes up his mind to approach him, though, because as sad (frightening) as it is, Malfoy _is_ the person Ron trusts most in the room, he looks around the pub again, one more time, and while Malfoy might not be paying him any attention, there are others that are. In particular, a Ravenclaw three years older than Ron himself, one of Nott's hangers on, and as soon as Ron meets his gaze, the Ravenclaw raises his hand and beckons him over. Tilts his head in the direction of the empty chair next to him.

Quickly Ron checks over his shoulder to make sure that the Ravenclaw isn't actually communicating with one of the two wizards behind him, but one has already headed to the bar, and the other is older than Ron's grandmum would be, so he thinks he's safe. He takes a step forward and the Ravenclaw nods, grinning, _really grinning_ at him.

Ron finds himself smiling back as he picks his way across the room, weaving through the thin pathways between the tables. He pulls out the wooden chair, settles himself in it, and from this spot he is close enough to Nott and the table-stage that he has to tilt his head upwards in order to see Nott's face when he begins speaking again, which he does.

"Tonight, my newest friends," Nott says, his voice as rhythmic and entrancing as Ron has heard it before. "Tonight, I want to tell you a story. It's a story of pain, yes, of suffering, yes, but ultimately it is a story of hope, a story of _belief_. It is the story of a man that I am honored to call more than a friend; indeed, I am honored to call him a _brother_." He pauses. Swallows. "Listen, my friends, to the tale of Percy Weasley, the founder of our Cause."

With those words, Ron feels the smile drop from his face, there one minute, completely gone the next, just like he feels the blood in his very veins turn to ice. It doesn't help that Nott is looking directly at him as he speaks Percy's name, his gaze as evaluating as ever, his eyes slightly narrowed, and Ron tries to figure out how he should be looking. Not shocked, he thinks. No, he should be proud. He should look like the brother who _believes_ , the one who's intent on carrying on his brother's legacy.

He tries, but he's pretty sure that he only succeeds in not looking as if he's going to be violently ill all over the table.

Nott continues, and the room is silent around his words. Or maybe Ron is so intent on listening to Nott that it just seems that way.

"A little over two years ago, my friends, Percy Weasley walked through that very door and into this very room. He ordered a drink at that very bar, sat down at that table over there-" Nott uses sweeps of his arm to indicate which areas of the room he's talking about, pointing out the specific details as he mentions them. All eyes in the room—Ron's, and Malfoy's too, Ron notices as he looks around-follow the motions "-and he started talking."

" _Talking_ my friends, of the world out there, a world which had betrayed him, as it has since come to betray all of us. He sat down at that table, my friends, and told a tale of his own. Of how for six years he had served the Ministry, loyally supporting and defending them to their detractors, even as it created irreparable rifts between him and those he was closest to, his friends, his family."

Here, Nott looks at Ron again. Here, he can feel the gazes of a good portion of the room resting on him, those at his table included. It is tempting to bow under them, to sink down in his chair and shield himself from them, but he makes himself sit up straight. He steels himself, because this is what he's here for. To 'continue' Percy's legacy, to make people believe in him.

" _Six years_ , my friends, he served loyally, until after the War was over, until after the losses had been tabulated, and the world cried out for accountability. Until Fudge, our esteemed Minister, gave into the pressure to clean house, to create a new image for the Ministry. He was left with a choice, my friends: to resign himself, or to see if he could make the world believe that his beliefs and actions during those horrible years had been led astray by the influence of those surrounding him, his advisors.

"It was a sad day in Wizarding history, my friends, the day that we accepted the choice that Minister Fudge made. But, in my own selfish way, I also consider it to be a glad day, for the events of that day where those that set Percy Weasley on the path here."

Ron closes his eyes, reopens them when he feels the elbow of the Ravenclaw next to him bump his own, and finds Nott staring at him _again_. This time, the look on his face is unreadable, except for a flash of challenge in his eyes, and _now_ Ron can tell what Nott is doing. It's a test, a bloody awful test by Nott to see if he can make Ron _break_ in front of the crowd-express his disgust, admit that he doesn't support Percy's legacy fully, do _something_ that Nott can twist into proof that Ron really _doesn't_ belong.

He blinks, blinks, and reminds himself that he knows this story already. He knows it all. He's reacted enough over the previous two years to get it out of his system, he tells himself. He can school himself now into a response of his own choosing.

"Afterwards," Nott continues, "he returned to the arms of his family. At first, he later told me, they seemed to welcome him home, the lost sheep returned, and for a few weeks, he actually thought that everything would be okay. That the rift which had been created between them as he stood beside Fudge had vanished.

"For a few weeks, he told me, he was content, he was happy just to be. But it didn't last, no, no it didn't last, it couldn't last, for, you see, where as Percy had once been the Ministry's greatest supporter, he was now their greatest detractor. As he stayed with his family, for the first time he saw what was truly going on in the world outside _unfiltered_ by his position and his loyalties. He looked, he saw, and he, my friends, he didn't like it, just as we look around and do not like what we see.

"He saw what was coming, my friends, when none of the rest of us were willing to. He could tell, even then, that those small concessions that the Ministry was making to the Muggles were just the first step down a long and winding road that would eventually _break us_ , as it _will_ , as it has started to _already_! He tried to warn his family and his friends as to what was to come, but they, my friends, they would not listen. Not at the time. They were so awash with relief that the war was over, that the world was starting to return to a normal where Wizards didn't have to fear for their lives, even sitting in their own homes, that they couldn't _see_! They told him that change was inevitable, change was good. They told him, my friends, that _our Percy_ was overreacting."

Ron blinks again. He remembers those conversations, over the breakfast table, over the dinner table, repeated until the twins could lay out every one of Percy's arguments before he could do it himself. The mocking, tired tones of the twins intertwined voices, the pale thinness of his mother's lips as they were forced to listen to the words _again_.

He remembers Percy's eyes as he spoke, wild and shining bright, flickering back and forth so quickly and showing so much white, that it looked as if he was rolling them. Yet Percy thought that _they_ were the ones overreacting, or under-reacting, as the case might be.

Ron tries to look shamed, as if he agrees.

"And so," Nott says, "Percy turned from them. He turned from them, and he came here. He _came here_ that night two years ago, and he _spoke_ , and I, my friends, was one of those lucky enough to be here that night to hear him. To listen.

"That night, my friends, he opened my eyes. That night, I _saw_."

Nott reaches for his mug again, and Ron watches as the goon oh so helpfully hands it back. He takes another long drink, but the foam has already melted away from the ale, leaving Nott licking at his lips, taking a deep breath.

"Our Ministry, my brothers and sisters, would like us to believe that there is nothing wrong with the state of our world. They would like us to believe that what concessions we have made to the Muggles over these last two years-to hide ourselves more completely, to restrict our passage through Muggle territories, yet to still help them repair the damage that Voldemort wrought-are temporary, just a way of regaining the Muggles' trust. They ask us to believe this, but two years later, they are still asking us to hide. Two years later, they _still_ ask us to be _ashamed of our heritage_.

"I, my friends," Nott says softly, "am not ashamed of being a wizard. Are you?"

The room is filled with a deafening "No!" which Ron finds himself uttering even before he tells himself to, even though he knows what Nott's not saying: that the restrictions placed upon them are for the Wizarding World's own good. They had grown lax in hiding their existence from Muggle view, and these restrictions are protecting them from the uncertainty and terror that still holds the Muggle world in its thrall.

"We are proud to be Wizards!" Nott shouts, "Just as my brother Percy was proud to be a Wizard, and he, my friends, was quite possibly prouder than all of the rest of us combined. He gave his _soul_ to help us; it is because of him that we are here. It is because of _him_ that the Cause exists, and it is because of him, our newest brothers and sisters, that I am here tonight to welcome you.

"I am proud," Nott says. "Proud of the responsibility with which all of you have entrusted me, to spread our word, our _pride in being Wizards_ to those who don't yet understand, or who can't yet see, or who maybe won't let themselves. It is my duty, you see, to bring our Cause to them, to help them understand, and that my friends, is what I am going to do."

Another pause, another breath, and Nott looks as if he's gearing up for an announcement. Which he is.

Nott says, "Next week, my friends, next Wednesday night, in Hogsmeade, I shall host the first in a series of what the Muggles call a 'Town Hall Meeting.' I shall speak, yes, and I shall answer questions, yes, but most importantly, I shall take our words out of Knockturn Alley, directly to those who need them most. If they can't come to us, we shall go to them. Are we agreed?"

A howl of triumph from the room, and Ron finds himself adding his voice to those around him-again, without consciously thinking about it. _Again_.

"We shall speak," Nott says loudly, his voice cutting them off, then dropping down to a normal level, so that they are forced to be quiet in order to hear him. He says, "Others shall listen, and then, my friends, our word shall spread."

The Ravenclaw next to Ron says, "Amen."

* * *

This time, after Nott has finished speaking, he doesn't disappear. He steps down from the table, sits down on one of the benches and his chosen few, the ones that Ron consider to be a part of Nott's inner circle, sidle over, taking their spots. One of the barmaids hurries up with a cloth and begins wiping the wood off, while another brings a tray already filled with overflowing mugs.

The Ravenclaw next to Ron, whose name, Ron is pretty sure, is Torrence, watches it all with wide, envious eyes. Then he turns to Ron, and by the time he's blinked once, the look is gone. He smiles again, and says, "You know, back at Hogwarts, I always thought your brother was a bit of a prat."

It takes Ron a moment to realize what it is, exactly, that he's just heard. It's been about three weeks now since he arrived in Knockturn Alley, and in that time, he's grown used to people talking Percy up. It sounds wrong, almost, for someone to be saying something uncomplimentary about him.

It's also the most honest thing he's heard since he arrived. Ron laughs.

"You and me both," Ron says. "But he had hidden depths, I guess."

Torrence nods. "Aye, he did. Does."

"Did," Ron says, and unlike Nott, Torrence doesn't correct him, doesn't start talking about Percy being a living martyr to The Cause.

After a moment of something that resembles companionable silence, Ron says, "He always wanted me to be more like him, you know. Even back at Hogwarts he tried to get me to be more like him, to follow in his footsteps where he knew the twins wouldn't."

"Obviously he saw something in you, even back then," Torrence says, "since here you are."

He leans back in his chair and studies Ron for a moment, but it's not the same sort of evaluating look that he's become used to seeing on Nott's face, Malfoy's. It's just there, and he's thinking thoughts about Ron, yes, but he doesn't seem to be thinking _hard_. It doesn't look as if he's decided that anything is amiss, or that Ron Doesn't belong.

"He used to talk about you some, your brother did," Torrence continues, rolling his shoulders and looking away. "After people started listening to him a bit."

Anyone else, and Ron would have expected them to be just waiting for Ron to ask the obvious questions-the what, the when-but Torrence doesn't seem to care. To him, it just seems to be a statement of fact: Percy used to talk about his brother. Now, Percy's brother knows that Percy used to talk about him.

It doesn't need to be any more than that.

Still, Ron can't resist the call of the unasked question, because Torrence might not be waiting for it, but it's sitting heavy on _his_ tongue. He tries to swallow it away, but it won't go. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't want to know, but he does.

"What sorts of things?" Ron asks. "What'd he say about me?"

It takes Torrence a moment to look back at him, another moment to apparently think up his answer, and then he gives a lazy shrug. "Potter, some. Your loyalty to him. How you'd believed that Voldemort had returned, and how you'd continued believing it even in the face of the Ministry's—his—denial. He said that he hoped that he'd have the guts and perseverance to stick by his convictions, as you had."

There's a pause and then Torrence says, "I think your brother would be proud of you, if he were here."

Ron finds himself smiling down into his mug, feeling almost warm inside, and it takes him a moment to realize that Percy's words are the cause-Percy had said he was brave. Percy was proud of him.

The smile fades in the next instant, though; he's here to betray Percy's memory, he reminds himself. He's here to use Percy's standing to bring down everything that Percy believed in.

Torrence, thankfully, doesn't seem to notice the sudden change in Ron's demeanor, though, because he's looking back at Nott's table, at the celebration there, and Ron follows his gaze. There's a toast going on at the moment, everyone's mugs coming together in the center of the table.

Nott, Ron sees, is laughing.

"The only difference," Torrence continues, "is that if your brother were here, you'd be sitting there, with them." Then, more softly: "I don't think it'll be too long before you make it there on your own, though."

There's nothing appropriate that Ron can think of to say to that-I know? I can only hope? Or, if my brother was here, I'd be back at the _Leaky Cauldron_ sharing a pint with Harry, with my _friends_ -so he just nods. Then he turns his attention to the rest of the room, raising his hand in an attempt to flag down a barmaid, so that he can order his usual ale.

* * *

It's just a bit before tea when the door to the bookshop opens, and Torrence walks in, looking around, eyeing the books like he's a tourist, a stranger in a strange land. He's also hand in hand with a girl that Ron recognizes, he does, but it takes him more than a moment to put her face with a name. It's been years since he's seen her, after all, more than four, and a) she's no longer wearing the Hogwarts uniform, obviously, but b) her curly hair has been cropped close to her face and dyed a flat, unnatural black.

She's eyeing Ron in a way that leaves no doubt as to whether she knows him, though, and it's that look that gives her away-the one that says she would rather be anywhere but there. He's seen it before, directed, well, at Harry, and he places her in the moment before Torrence does the introductions.

"Weasley!" Torrence says. "How're you doing today?" Ron thinks that if they were standing any closer together, Torrence would try to clap him on the shoulder, like they were long lost friends. That's how he sounds, anyway. Before Ron can answer, though, he continues: "You remember Marietta, don't you? You all ran around a bit back at Hogwarts, if I heard correctly."

Ron says, "Yes, I remember. Of course I do."

He doesn't say, If by 'ran around' you mean that your girlfriend betrayed us to that foul bitch _Umbridge_ then yes, I do. He doesn't say, Marietta, it's good to see that the scars have finally cleared up.

He just thinks it, and then tries not to as, for the first time since she graduated four years before, Ron gets to take a good look at Marietta Edgecombe. At first glance, she doesn't look to be the same girl that he remembers: aside from her hair, she's wearing a long, flowing skirt made of multiple bands of different colored fabric, and the bright purple robe over the top. She looks as if she's stepped out of one of the photographs of the Marauders, or one that his mum has, from when she was pregnant with Charlie.

Ron watches as Torrence gives her hand a squeeze, though, and then she says, "Hello, Ron. It's been a bit, hasn't it?" She studies him for a moment, and he can almost tell what she's thinking, that she's remembering Hogwarts, too. Remembering Hermione and how close she and Ron used to be. But then she smiles, and suddenly, she's not looking unfriendly in the slightest. She says, "Bygones?"

Ron nods, hoping that he looks relieved, and since Torrence is looking pleased now, as if he's orchestrated a peace treaty in the midst of war, he supposes that he does.

"Splendid," Torrence says. "That's just splendid." Then he looks down at Marietta, shifts so that his arm is hooked around her shoulders, and when he looks back at Ron, he's still looking pleased.

And he looks, keeps on looking.

After a long moment that has dipped straight into awkward, Ron finally says, "Is there something that I can help the two of you with today?" He's looking mostly at Torrence, but it's Marietta who answers.

She leans into Torrence's side and says, "You could join us for dinner tonight. A few of us were going to be meeting up at the _Apple_ , the _Alabaster Apple_ , you know the place. It's a weekly thing, you understand-we just get together for an eat and a bit of a blab, and Torry here, he thought that you might like to join us."

It takes all of Ron's willpower to not immediately say yes, to not let the word fall off his tongue so quickly that he stumbles over it. To appear too eager would be suspicious. He needs to look as if he's thinking it over, so he turns to the ceiling, trying to look as if he's mulling over his plans for the night, which really only consisted of his going to the _Snitch_ again.

"Sure," he says finally, when he thinks that enough time has passed, trying to only sound pleased, not utterly excited. Not like his insides are doing a jig, which they are. "That sounds like it'll be a good time."

He watches as both Torrence and Marietta nod, looking pleased, and then he swallows. "I, ah. I don't know where that is, though. I've heard of the _Apple_ , of course-" which is a lie "-but I haven't been there yet." He directs this to Marietta, so of course it's Torrence- _Torry_ -who speaks.

"Don't worry about that, mate," Torrence says. "Mari and I, we'll stop by here on our way over. Unless you need to go back to your rooms for a bit? Change, perhaps? Grab a few sickles?"

Ron shakes his head. "I'm good," he said. "Good to go."

"We'll be here at closing time, then," Torrence says, and then he and Marietta turn to leave.

Before they get to the door, though, Ron remembers his manners. He says, "Hey, thanks for inviting me."

It's Torrence who turns back around, grins. Says, "Really, Mate. The pleasure'll be all ours."


	8. Chapter 8

True to their word, Torrence and Marietta are waiting for him just outside the bookshop that evening, as he steps out the door, pulling his robe tightly around his shoulders, as if that will help ward off the sudden shock of the cool night air.

Torrence has his arm draped over Marietta's shoulders and is holding her close, and for a moment, watching them, Ron thinks back to Hermione, to how _she_ used to lean into him, against him, in much the same way that Marietta is doing with Torrence right now. If he thinks about it hard enough, Ron is relatively sure that he can still remember the scent of Hermione's shampoo, the way her curls tickled at his nose.

It's just a whisper of a thought, though, and it's all he allows himself before he makes himself grin at his two companions and say, "Hello."

They both grin back, but Torrence is the one to say, "Right on time." At that, Marietta laughs, a surprisingly musical sound.

"Not that he'd notice if you were an hour late, mind," she says. "Time and Torrence… Well, if you spend enough time around him, you'll find out what I mean."

She smiles at Ron then, real, genuine, and Ron finds himself thinking that four years ago, if anyone had told him that Marietta Edgecombe would be treating him with something other than complete and utter disdain, he would have said that they weren't quite right in the head.

Four years ago, he thinks, if someone had told him that he'd _want_ to be making friendly with Marietta Edgecombe, well, _he_ would have been the disdainful one.

Before he can dwell on that thought much longer, though, Marietta turns to Torrence and says, "We really should be on our way. You know that the twins will go ahead and order for us if we don't get there soon, and you remember what happened the last time that happened, don't you?" She looks over at Ron then and winks almost conspiratorially. "Frogs legs," she says. "To which I said, never again."

"To which we both said," Torrence says, shuddering, but also starting to move in what Ron assumes is the direction of the _Apple_ , Marietta's arm linked with his. "Alex insisted they were considered a great delicacy in some parts of the world, but I like my frogs hopping, thank you very much."

Ron thinks of all of the frogs Fred and George had captured over the years, letting them out in his mum's kitchen, or under Ginny's bed, or in one of Percy's drawers, and says, "Yeah, yeah, I'll second that."

* * *

The Apple, Ron discovers, is what one might call 'a hole in the wall'.

It's a small place, its façade of roughly-hewn stone almost seeming to bulge outwards into the street, its upper-story windows boarded up, the weather-worn apple-shaped wooden sign that hangs above the front door the only thing that differentiates it from the buildings on either side.

From the outside, Ron thinks, it looks cold, uninviting, like someplace he would never just _walk into_ , but once he steps inside, he feels, well, almost at home. Because inside it reminds him of a hundred evenings spent in little holes in the wall just like this one, with Harry and Hermione. Neville and Seamus and Dean. Justin and Lavender. A large fireplace off to one side, tables packed tightly enough that your neighbor's conversation pretty much becomes your own. The smell of meat and spices and liquor heavy in the air.

True, the room isn't as full as most of the places he used to go to, before, but there are people, couples and groups and one set of six in the corner that seem to be waving in their direction.

Torrence leads the way across the room, with Ron following and Marietta trailing behind, and then Ron is being gestured towards a seat—between Marietta and another girl, who introduces herself as Ro, across the table from the twins (blondes, with freckles), introduced as Alex and Ash. There's a dark-featured man with crooked teeth and a friendly smile, Cyril, and another couple, Eric and Lina, who take turns reaching across the table to shake Ron's hand.

"You made it just in time," Alex says, winking at Torrence and Marietta and maybe Ron, too. "We were just about to go ahead and order…"

"Which, of course, would be the last thing you ever did," Marietta replies, her voice overly sweet, and the whole table laughs. And just like that, Ron feels more comfortable than he has in three weeks, because it's exactly the sort of conversation he'd expect to hear during one of his normal nights out. The teasing, the banter.

It feels good, it feels comfortable, but Ron can't decide if it feels better or worse when, at the end of the evening, Torrence says, "Oi, Weasley. You busy this weekend? I was thinking of taking some Town Hall fliers around. Do you feel like coming along?" and actually looks like he wants Ron to say yes.

Ron still hasn't decided by the time he answers, saying, "Yeah, sure. I'll be there, of course."

* * *

Saturday morning and the crooked streets of Knockturn Alley are crowded, full.

Outside it's a press of bodies, true, elbows to ribs as people make their way upstream, down, no current to move with, but inside it's just as bad, in a different way. Ron stands by the window, holding the parchment to the dirty glass as Torrence says the necessary charms to make it stay there, and he can smell the wet wool of other customer's cloaks, the scent of stale smoke from nights spent in front of fires. He looks around and sees greasy hair and torn robes, slitted eyes that always seem to be focused on him.

Ronald Weasly.

Betrayer extraordinaire.

Three weeks he's been here now, doing this, and while he's become less an object of interest at the _Snitch_ , at the bookshop, and in the street outside his room, there are others, he realizes, who've yet to have had a chance to see him. Others to whom he's still just a name, a face in the newspaper, a headline: _Traitor!_

They're in a potions shop, the _Halstern Street Apothecary_. The walls are lined with cubbies labeled with names that Ron recognizes from seven years spent in Snape's potions classroom. While there are a few wizards browsing those, plucking out fish eyes and strands of Kneazle hair and taking scoops of dried Mugwart, more are going to the counter and dropping coins into the hand of the proprietor, who in turn sends an assistant scurrying to the back room, only to have him come back again a few minutes later with a plain, unmarked paper sack.

It's not so very unlike the potion shops down _Diagon Alley_ , Ron thinks, except for the fact that he's pretty sure those plain paper sacks coming from behind the counter don't contain candied mint leaves.

He doesn't realize that he's staring until Torrence says, "I didn't stick _your_ fingers to the window too, did I, mate?" and Ron looks back to the poster and sees that it's well and truly stuck, that he's holding it for no reason.

Quickly, he lets go and takes a step back, and he feels himself blushing just a bit, because Torrence is grinning—a teasing look of the same sort that Harry used to give him—and… And it feels normal.

Good in a way that Ron truly wasn't expecting to feel during his mission here, and that in itself feels almost wrong.

Before he can begin to dwell on that, though, Torrence says, "You need anything here? Anything you need to stock up on?"

Ron shakes his head and Torrence looks back at the proprietor, nodding his head and gesturing at the window, a 'thanks' and 'we're done and on our way' all rolled into one. Then they head towards the door to the shop, working their way between milling people.

It seems to get warmer, the smells of smoke and wool more thick and stifling the closer they get to the door, but then with a jingle of bells they're outside again, the comparative freshness a shock. Ron's shoes sink into the dirty slush of snow and the cold air against his cheeks is a sharp contrast to the heat of the bodies on the street around him.

They stand on the sidewalk outside the doorway for a moment, far enough out so that people can get around them, but close enough so that they aren't pressed into the crowd. Ron looks over at Torrence, intent on asking where they should go next, but as he does, he sees—

He sees Malfoy, standing just a few meters away, leaning back against a lamppost. Staring at Ron. Looking more like the Malfoy that Ron knew in school than he has since Ron arrived in Knockturn Alley. But not, too, because he's not exactly smirking. He's not heading towards Ron, swaggering, laughing, words of scorn already falling from his lips. No, he's just looking at him, a look on his face that Ron thinks of as unreadable but might be disappointment.

Before Ron can call out to him, though, ask him what his problem is, Malfoy shakes his head, turns, and leaves, quickly getting lost from sight in the crowd.

Ron stares after him for a long moment, though, until Torrence touches his shoulders and says, "Come on, mate. We've more places to go yet today."

* * *

Even if Ron hadn't been 'in the know' about Nott's Town Hall meeting, even if he hadn't spent the entire previous weekend hanging up posters around Knockturn Alley, he still would have known that something was going on, just by looking out the window of the bookshop. Where there were usually people milling about, the street seemed to be rather empty: two wizards pushing carts of their wares unhindered, unnoticed; a mother with a stroller; three witches standing down at the corner, looking up at the sky.

"I still say," Mr. Chubbs says from behind him, and Ron turns away from the window, looking to his boss. "I still say there's time, if you'd like—"

And Ron says, "No," before the man can utter the unspoken 'to go.' "No, I can't. Not out there."

He raises a hand and gestures in the direction of Diagon Alley, because that, of course, is where Nott is, where Nott's followers are, taking the word, The Cause, _to the people_. To those who don't believe. That, after all, is the whole purpose of the Town Hall in the first place.

But Ron can't be there, no matter that Chubbs is perfectly willing to give him the time off to get there. He's safe enough in Knockturn Alley, what with the general disdain for the Ministry, him being who he is, Percy's brother, and the general respect for Nott. As the girl at the _Snitch_ told him his very first night, after all, those on the 'Wanted' posters that the Ministry distributes are never caught.

Unless Nott wants them to be, of course.

If there's one thing Ron's pretty sure of thus far, though, it's that Nott wouldn't benefit—not yet—from having him out of the picture. So for now, Ron figures, he's safe. As long as he stays in Knockturn Alley, that is.

It would be a different story in Diagon Alley, though. _There_ he wouldn't make it to the town hall; he wouldn't make it five paces past _Flourish & Blotts_. He'd be back in Ministry hands faster than he could gather his concentration to Apparate away.

Besides, he doesn't need to be there. He _knows_ the Ministry, _knows_ the Inspector and he _knows_ that Nott's Town Hall will be crawling with Aurors and spies. The Inspector will get the information he needs and the lack of Ron's presence will only support his cover.

"Well," Chubbs says again as he steps away. "If you change your mind…"

"Thank you," Ron says, turning away, too. "Thank you, but no. No."

* * *

For years Ron's father kept an old television set stashed in their shed, but as far as Ron was ever concerned, it was just like one of his mum's mantle pieces: nothing but decoration. Hermione had actually shown him what a telly could be, though, with electricity and an antenna: the picture, how it was _right there_ , moving just like one of his photographs, except that it was _more_ , too, a whole story on display rather than just a captured moment of time.

They'd sat on her parents couch for a whole afternoon once, Harry by their side, watching programs that Ron had never heard of, and that's the only thing Ron can think of to compare this to, really. Sitting in the _Snitch_ like this, as he is, watching the image flickering in the fireplace, Torrence and Marietta by his side.

The room is full—more full than Ron expected it to be, given the number of people he knows went to Diagon Alley this evening to actually hear the speech in person, to fill seats that Nott needs to be filled. Every chair and bench in the Snitch is taken, though, and when Ron looks out the window, he can see clusters of people huddled outside, too, peering in through the dirt-edged panes of glass.

The three of them aren't sitting in the front row of seats, but rather in the fourth, off to the side. Still, they have a relatively clear view of the fireplace, of Nott's torso, his face, translucent in front of rising flames. The image is flat, uneven and spotty, fading out as the flames dance with gusts of breeze down the floo, but Nott's voice comes in loud and clear. It echoes around the room, off the walls, as if he is there in the Snitch; just like he is giving any other speech.

"Ah," Nott is saying in answer to a question from a witch in the audience of the hall in Diagon Alley, and the flames make his eyes seem to flash, bright and hot, alive. "Ah, but _see_ , Madame, our esteemed Minister has not done his homework." Nott's grin is sharp, his tone edged with laughter. "For if he had, he would know that I have said _several times_ that it is not my plan to take the Wizarding world into direct conflict with the Muggles. No, what I want is equality. Simple as that. What I want is to look into the faces of everyone here today and everyone who's not, old and young alike, and to tell them that it is okay to be a wizard. That it is not something to be ashamed of. That, in fact, they should be _proud_ of our heritage. That we all should be!"

The image in the fireplace is still of only Nott, but it is no longer just his voice that Ron can hear. He hears applause, too, not quite as loud as he's used to hearing in the Snitch, but definitely there.

"But as your minister," Nott continues, "I would work with the Muggle government—the Prime Minister—to loosen the restrictions that we have recently found ourselves subjected to. I would attempt to find ways that wizards and Muggles could live in harmony, neither of us giving ground for the other."

A pause, and Nott lifts a glass to his mouth, taking a swallow, then wetting his lips.

"Two years ago, my friends, when Voldemort fell, we had the opportunity to create a new, better world for ourselves. No more living in terror of a death that might come at any moment at the hands of someone we once called friend; no more focusing all of our efforts and resources on a war that seemed impossible to win.

"For the first time in half a decade, my friends, we were on the cusp of being able to look forward rather than focusing our attention on what had come before. But did we take that opportunity? No! No, we accepted censure as reward for our victory. We, as a people, took the blame for the actions committed by those we had fought against. Tell me, was that right? Was that fair?"

"No!"

Nott does not immediately say the word himself, but the people sitting around Ron in the Snitch do—Ron does, too—and he can hear echoes of the same through the fireplace. More clapping, more cheers.

"No," Nott says, "no." He pauses, takes a breath, then looks straight ahead again. "It's not right, nor fair, and, Madame, in answer to your question, I intend to change that." Another pause, a smile. "All right. Next question." He raises an arm to point somewhere in the hall. "Okay, yes, you."

"Lenora Pumpbert," a witch Ron cannot see says. "My question, Mr. Nott, is about Percy Weasley—" and Ron feels himself go ice cold, still "—whose steps you claim to be following in."

"Mr. Weasley," the witch continues, "as we all know, was captured attempting to attack the Ministry, ten followers by his side, and was sentenced to be Kissed. Not three weeks ago, his brother Ron was accused of leaking information to you—information that led to the deaths of two Aurors. How, Mr. Nott, can you stand there and preach peace, equality and unity, when your ideals are bathed in blood?"

Ron's fingers are curled into the sleeves of his robe and he's sure he must be pale, skin white and sickly underneath his freckles. In the three weeks he's been here, he's been treated with suspicion, yes, but people have accepted his actions as being done for the good of the Cause.

Three weeks now and it's hard to remember, sometimes, that there is a world outside of this, a world beyond Harry and his mum, the people who've expressed their disappointment in him; a _whole world_ that feels he's betrayed them, too.

Nott is silent for a moment, his face pensive. He is thinking; as flat as the picture is, a ghost of his true self, really, Ron can see it. Finally he speaks.

"Yes," Nott says slowly. "Yes, I claim to follow in Percy Weasley's footsteps. I try _very hard_ to live up to the ideals which he initially professed during our first conversations so many years ago. Without him, there would be no movement, no Cause to believe in, and for that I am proud to claim Percy our founder, but more importantly, my friend. My brother."

There is a wistful look on Nott's face—genuine regret, as if he really does miss Percy—and for a moment, Ron has to close his eyes. But then Nott is speaking again.

"In fact, if events had played out differently, I have no doubt that it would be Percy himself standing here, talking to you tonight—I only wish that you could have heard the passion with which he spoke, the deepness with which he believed. If only—but events developed as they did. He sacrificed himself for what he believed in.

"It is true, my friends, that I do not condemn what Percy Weasley did—his attack on the ministry—for he was only following his heart. Those were dark days, my friends, where people were so relieved that our war was over, they were willing to turn a blind eye to anything that didn't fit in with their views of a happy future. We could talk and talk, but outside of those who were already distrustful of the Ministry, few would listen. Our words— _Percy's_ words—were not being heard. And finally, one day, Percy could take it no more.

"I did not know of the extent of my brother's plans," Nott says. "But as I said, I cannot condemn him for what he did; he believed that the world needed a wakeup call. Only through drastic action, he thought, would anyone give his ideals a second glance. So, he drew attention to his beliefs in the only way he knew how. I, personally, may not agree with the final choice that he made—hasn't our world seen enough violence in these last two decades?—but I am honored to be able to carry on his legacy.

"However, make no mistake: I _do not_ condone violence in the name of our Cause. My friends, I was shocked and horrified and _deeply saddened_ by the unfortunate incident which led to the deaths of those two Auror's last year. Yes, it is true, that information was passed to one of my cohorts about the ministry's raid on Knockturn Alley—"

Which was Ron, all Ron. Well, Ron and the Inspector, but Ron is the one who was meant to take the blame. He was building his cover, showing Nott that he could provide information that would be useful, taking what small steps he could towards Nott's inner circle.

Also, it was the necessary red-flag for the Ministry that they had trouble, a mole in their midst. The first clue on the path towards Ron's planned discovery.

No one was supposed to have died, though. No one would have, if the Aurors had just waited an extra few minutes, until their backup arrived. But they didn't and they'd been outnumbered by wizards who, in Percy's memory, just weren't going to sit back any longer, and Ron had spent that night throwing up in the toilet, unable to tell Hermione what was wrong.

"But I never received such information. The information never reached me, my friends. It was through that unfortunate incident that I realized there were other factions working within our cause. You will remember that afterwards I spoke out publicly against those who committed those crimes, that slaughter, for they were not true believers, my friends. No, they were out for their own personal gain, not the betterment of all. In their actions, they proved they were our brothers no longer.

"Our Cause, my friends, is about freedom. It is about equality. It is about unity among wizards, not war, and if there is one piece of information you take with you tonight, all of you, I hope that it is this. Because that is the essence of our Cause. No matter what my opponent may say, no matter what lies and bent truths he may tell, _that_ is what we stand for.

"So this is what I ask of you: if you believe in freedom and equality, if you would like to see a more peaceful, proud future for the wizarding world, then please, vote for me, Theodore Nott, to be your next Minister of Magic."

When he finishes talking there is silence. In the Snitch, in the hall, and Ron can feel the complete and utter belief that those around him have in Nott. It is enthralling and in that moment, Ron wants to believe, too.

His palms are sweaty, though, filthy feeling, and he rubs them against the cloth of his trousers, but it doesn't seem to help, because this is his real world, where the truth is that Nott is a dangerous man for all his talk of peace and unity. That Percy _led an attack on the Ministry_. That Ron is here to do what he can, should the worst—or anything, really, that the Inspector's anticipating—come to pass.

No matter how much he might want to be feeling the same joy that those around him are feeling, this is his real life. The end.

Except it's not the end, of course. It's only the beginning, or possibly the beginning of the middle, and as Ron rubs his palms against the cloth of his slacks again, the applause starts. It's like a trickle at first, a few hands clapping, then more, then nearly the entire room is on its feet, the same noises echoing in through the fireplace as well, and Ron watches as Nott smiles, his face framed by bricks, by flames.

* * *

Surprisingly—or perhaps not—the _Snitch_ is even more crowded when Nott finally arrives, two of his bodyguards making a path through the room to Nott's table at the very front. It is standing room only, packed from wall to wall, and while Ron recognizes most of the faces from the previous three weeks, there are new ones, too. Perhaps from the town hall, perhaps those who were standing outside of the pub, watching through the windows.

It doesn't really matter, though, because when he comes into the _Snitch_ Nott is smiling, wider than Ron has ever seen him smile. His eyes are bright, his lips stretched wide, showing off thin white teeth. He shakes hands with nearly every witch and wizard that edges the cleared pathway, slapping most of them on the back, too. But when he gets to where Ron is sitting, he stops.

"Weasley!" he says, flicking a hand in Ron's direction, once, then again, until Ron takes it as an invitation to stand, approach. Nott nods, apparently pleased.

"Ron Weasley," he says again, fondly, as Ron draws closer, close enough for Nott to throw an arm around Ron's shoulders, which he does. "I think your brother would be proud of what we achieved tonight. What do you think?"

Ron nods, because it's true. He can picture it: Percy standing beside Nott right now, his eyes bright with that light which had made Ron shiver those last few months of Percy's life, his cheeks flushed. His grin wide instead of pinched. This would have been _his_ night.

"Aye," Ron says. "He would have been."

Nott is practically vibrating with energy; Ron can feel it and he turns in a circle, dragging Ron with him; they are the center of attention, Ron sees. Faces look back at them, eyes wide, glowing with shared victory.

"This is Percy's night," Nott says—loudly enough for Ron to hear and those around them, too—but then Ron sees him gesturing to one of the bodyguards, who immediately hands him a tankard of ale, foam already dripping down the sides. He raises it towards the ceiling, and around them, everyone else in the room seems to, too.

"Tonight, my friends, can only be considered a victory," Nott says. He doesn't quite shout, but the room quiets around them so that his voice is clearly audible. "I would like to propose a toast: to Percy Weasley's vision! To our Cause!" All around him, Ron hears echoes of 'Percy' and 'Cause'. Then Nott is speaking more quietly again. His arm tightens around Ron's shoulders as he says, "Come, sit with us tonight."

Ron says, "Yes, yes, of course," trying not to sound relieved, but what he's thinking is, _finally_.

* * *

There is a chair for him at the front table, but whether it's been added for his benefit, or whether he's displaced a normal face, he doesn't know. He sits, though, between a McNair and a dark-featured man, and a girl brings over another glass of ale, the same as everyone else at the table is drinking.

Nott sits down across from him, smiles, and Ron finds himself smiling back, because this is everything he's wanted. Everything he's worked for.

And for a half an hour, it's good: Nott mostly talks, the others mostly listen. Nott repeats his favorite points from the evening, the remarks that cut directly to the heart of Fudge's campaign.

It is good enough, in fact, that Ron does not see the end coming. One moment he is with them, drinking, and the next Nott is standing, looking at all of the others in turn as they stand too, saying, "Now, my friends, I believe it is time for us to retire upstairs; no rest for the wicked, is there?" Then he looks at Ron. "Weasley, _Ron_ , you must join us again."

Then they are gone and Ron is left half-standing from the table, alone.

* * *

The voice comes from behind him, mocking and familiar: "You didn't honestly think it would be that simple, did you?"

Ron doesn't turn to face the speaker, but then Malfoy leans a hand on the table, leaning down into Ron's line of sight.

"You did," Malfoy continues, sounding just a bit gleeful. "You really thought that it would be that easy. An invitation to join him for one drink after an evening spent invoking your brother's name and memory and ideals. On a night when he's trying to prove that those ideals are _his_ ideals. You thought you'd be in. You're pathetic, Weasley."

He laughs then, but it's not truly unkind, tinged with poison like back at Hogwarts. No, it's almost pitying, and that, Ron is pretty sure, is even worse.

Malfoy must notice Ron's clenched fist, though, and the way it's twitching on the tabletop, because although Ron is studiously not looking at him, out of the corner of his eye, he can see Draco pull out the chair next to him, flip it around, sit down backwards.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Malfoy asks. His voice borders on cold, but in all honesty, Ron can't tell whether it's directed at him or Nott.

"Tell me why, Weasley. Give me one good reason why he should have invited you upstairs right now." He waits a beat, probably to give Ron an opportunity to speak, but before Ron can think of a response, he continues. "Because you're you? Because you're Percy Weasley's brother? Because you want to be up there? It doesn't work like that. It won't ever work like that, because right now, he can get everything he needs from you—your name, your support—right here, like this."

"So you're saying, what?" Ron says. "You're saying he needs to see me as a threat?" He knows he sounds incredulous, probably looks incredulous, and Malfoy is just smiling at him, slightly narrow-eyed. "Why, so he can call in the Aurors? So he claim that I am no longer one of his 'brothers', that my Cause is not his Cause? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He halfway expects Malfoy to say 'yes, yes I would', but instead he shakes his head.

"I'm saying, Weasley, that your name alone makes you the second most powerful man in this room, yet you come when you're called, you hover around, waiting for him to notice you. He has you acting like his _lapdog_ in front of the _world_. Did you ever think about that? What I'm saying, Weasley, is: tell me why, if you can be satisfied with that, he should give you anything more?"

Ron has no answer for him.


	9. Chapter 9

Three days later, Ron still has no answer for him, because Malfoy is right. _Malfoy_ is _right_ , and Ron has no idea how to go about changing the status quo. Not without totally stepping off script, which is—

Which is—

Ron doesn't even know.

What he does know is that if he screws this up, if he does something _wrong_ , this whole thing could very well blow up in their faces. They might not be able to do anything about Nott before it's too late, and then it won't just be Ron who suffers, it'll be the entire Wizarding world.

These are the sorts of thoughts he thinks for two days, while he's been working at the bookshop, or sipping his ale at the _Snitch_ , or lying in his room, staring up at the ceiling. Nott hasn't been back to the _Snitch_ —or at least back _downstairs_ —since the night of the Town Hall, and on day three, Ron doesn't know whether to be frustrated at the constant one step forward, two steps back cycle he seems to be engaged in, or glad that he doesn't have to truly acknowledge that he _has_ taken two steps back. There is still a small sliver of possibility, after all, that the next time Nott holds court at the front table, his seat will still be there. There's a chance that _this_ could be the time that Nott invites him upstairs.

It could happen.

After three days of waiting, though, Ron knows that it's not going to happen.

If Ron truly was in the inner circle, holding the spot that he'd foolishly thought would be his just because of his name, his misdeeds, he would know where Nott had been for the last three days. He would have been invited up to the room that night for the council of war, or more drinks, or the opportunity to laugh at the eager masses that were falling for Nott's shtick, or whatever it was that they'd ended up discussing.

So, on night three, his cider growing cold on the table in front of him, he pulls out a sheet of parchment and writes _Dear Mum_. Among the halting apologies, the crossed out phrases, he hides the necessary coded words: _Nott still doesn't trust me. I have an idea, but it could go to shit. Meet?_

He crumples the note up as he leaves the _Snitch_ and drops it in the same rubbish pile that he did before, and it's late, dark, but he hears a scurrying and sees a flash of disapparation out of the corner of his eye.

The next morning, when he wakes up, he finds a folded sheet of parchment on his chair. It takes him a quarter of an hour to decode the message, but when he does, he sees that it reads: _Seven o'clock. You know the place._ He throws it in his fireplace and burns it, stirring the ashes with his wand to make sure that nothing remains.

He thinks that it's going to be a long day. He thinks that it's going to be all he can do to get through eight hours of shelving books, but shortly after lunch a dotty old witch comes in, wanting recommendations on everything from spell books to the latest cozy mysteries, and Chubbs is sending Ron up ladders and into boxes in the back of the shop, and by the time six o'clock rolls around, he's exhausted.

Still, he has places to go, people to see, so he counts out his sickles and buys a kabob from the cart down the street, then heads to the designated safe house. He takes the long way, glancing in every window he passes to make sure he isn't being followed. It's a pain, yes, but the day that he doesn't take these precautions is the day that someone will follow him, and the game will be up. And who knows what will happen then.

At 7:01, he lets himself in through the rickety back door, and walks down a filthy hallway, until he finally reaches the innermost room. There's a fire burning, an old man with a beard sitting at the table.

"Ron," he says, and Ron nods. "Inspector."

The Inspector almost smiles, or at least Ron thinks he does, but then he motions for Ron to take a seat.

"So," he says. "Tell me this plan of yours, and maybe we can stop it from going to shit."

Ron starts at the beginning. How hard he's been working, how he was feeling as if he was making progress. How Nott actually asked him to join the head table that night, after the town hall. The Inspector nods at that, and Ron thinks that it's probably a pleased nod, but that sliver of approval seems to fade when he tells the Inspector that he thinks Malfoy might be right.

Because, the more he thinks about it, the more he knows that Malfoy is.

He tells the Inspector what he would like to do—the plan that could very well go to shit, or at the very least make Ron a non-player—and after he's done, the Inspector is silent for what feels like ages, but is probably only a minute or so, and then he nods.

"Okay," he says, and Ron doesn't know whether he should feel the giddy rush that comes with the Inspector's approval or scared out of his mind.

Five days ago, if Malfoy hadn't come up to Ron in his moment of humiliation, Ron imagines that this scene would have gone differently. That, if he'd come into the _Snitch_ and found Nott back at his usual table, Ron would have sidled on up to them, ready to claim his spot and hope against hope that this would be the night the he took two steps forward and only one step back.

Instead, the Inspector's 'okay' still ringing in his years, Ron walks into the _Snitch_ , sees Nott and company at their usual table, and then looks around to see whom else he knows. Torrence and Marietta aren't there, but Alex and Ash and Ro are, and so, with what feels like the eyes of the entire establishment resting heavily on his back, he walks towards them, gestures at the empty seat, and asks if he can sit down.

Ron is pretty sure that Alex has never met anyone he doesn't immediately consider a friend, so he tells Ron in no uncertain terms that the seat is his. Ron sits, and only then does he allow himself to look towards the front of the room. At the empty seat that is, indeed, at Nott's table, which presumably might have been waiting for him.

At McNair, who's glowering in his direction.

At Malfoy, sitting off in one corner with Goyle, looking at Ron like he's a puzzle to be figured out. Ron raises an eyebrow at Malfoy, and other man has the grace to look away. Ron can see that he's frowning, but it doesn't look like an unfriendly frown.

Ron only gives it a few moments of thought, though, because Alex is drawing him into the conversation, wanting to hear tales of the antics Ron's brothers got up to. "We've grown up hearing tales of the terror of the Weasley twins," Ash says, interrupting his brother. "He just wants to hear them straight from the source."

Ron obliges.

And if he makes himself laugh a little louder than he normally would, or pay more attention to the stories that everyone else tells… If, truly, for the first time since he arrived in Knockturn Alley that fateful day nearly four weeks ago, he makes an effort to be as friendly as he can, well.

Well.

It's only because Malfoy was right.

But he wasn't just right about the fact that Ron has been acting like a pathetic little lapdog, eager for any attention he can get. No, he was also right about the fact that Ron's name, his connections, make him the second most powerful man in the room. And if Ron is going to be an asset to Nott—which he now realizes he needs to be, to make it into the inner circle—Nott needs to see that Ron can wield some weight of his own.

He needed to see that Ron is Percy's brother, in more than just name.

The next time Ron lets himself look at Nott's table, he sees that Nott is looking back at him. It's a casual glance, not one that makes Ron think Nott has been staring at him, but there's a look on Nott's face that Ron can't read—perhaps one of faint amusement?—and so, Ron does the only thing he can think of. He nods in Nott's direction.

Nott nods in return.

* * *

Time passes.

A day, a week, two. When Ron thinks about it in those terms, it feels as if time is moving far too quickly. Like it's just streaming away, sand through an hourglass, each second bringing him closer to the inevitable endgame, which they are not even close to being ready for. Which Ron doesn't see how they _can_ be ready for, not at the rate he's moving.

But then he looks back at how much has happened in the six weeks since the Aurors showed up at his desk at the ministry and told him to stand up and come with them, please, that they had some questions for him. Since Harry had looked at them and said, "What? Ron, what are they—?" At that moment, Ron had wanted nothing more than to call for the Inspector, to tell him to forget this whole thing, because Ron was the wrong wizard for this job, _Ron was the wrong wizard_ , but he hadn't.

And look how far he's come.

So, six weeks into this new life of his, he goes to work at the shop five days out of seven; lets Torrence, or Alex, or one of their other friends talk him into going out for dinner at other favorite holes in the wall three times; and he goes to hear Ash and Ro's band play in a rickety old flat another two. He spends the rest of his evenings at the _Snitch_.

Holding court.

He doesn't call it that, not even very quietly in the back of his head, but Malfoy does, on day three of this new plan, when he caught Ron as he was coming in, saying, "So this is your grand solution? You holding court at one end of the room while Nott courts them on the other?"

"I'm not holding court," Ron had said, because he wasn't, he's not, not in the way that Nott does. Nott is still the one to bring in the crowds, after all, and when he talks, people listen.

Ron doesn't ask anyone to listen to him.

But.

But Nott's table is reserved for his inner circle, and anyone can sit at Ron's. And whereas most people can't get within three tables of the one reserved for Nott, Ron's group's table keeps expanding, until they've got a line of them snaking through the room. And while Ron prefers to sit with Torrence, Marietta, or Alex, since he knows them best, he meets a few new people every day, welcoming them as they tell him how glad they are to see him, how much they admired his brother.

It gets easier for Ron to say, "Me too," and "Thank you."

On day five, Pansy drags Malfoy over to their table.

On day seven, Malfoy sits down by himself, and the look that he gives Ron is – it doesn't quite say, 'okay, I give up, you win,' but it's not as speculative as it once had been. Ron's not sure that he'll ever truly convince Malfoy that he belongs here, but Malfoy also probably doesn't believe that Ron is a good enough actor to have kept the game going this long, if there wasn't some truth to it.

On day ten of The New Plan, Ron looks up to see that their cluster of tables is taking up more than half the room. Nott isn't there, but up until this point, his cronies, his hangers on, have had a significant pull of their own, with people wanting to get close to them, in hopes of getting close to Nott.

That night there are empty seats around them.

There are no empty seats around Ron.

Instead, it's Ron asking about a shopkeeper's day, about a woman's children, agreeing that yes, the hope for the future does rest with Nott, with wizards taking their place in history, subject to no one, living in fear of _no one_.

It's Ron that has to announce he's leaving half an hour before he actually wants to, since that's how long it takes him to get to the door, with people wanting to tell him just one more thing.

Day eleven and Nott is back, holding court, and this time, when he catches Ron's eye, the look he gives him isn't so friendly. Because Ron is the second most powerful man in the room. Because Nott knows that Ron now knows it. Because, over the last week and a half, Ron has started to wield his power, and suddenly, Ron is no longer a lapdog, but is in fact _competition_.

Ron nods at Nott again, forming as genuine and friendly a smile on his face as he can, trying to convey 'I'm not competition, I'm not,' but inside his heart is dancing a jig. For the first time since arriving in Knockturn Alley, he feels like he's taken two steps forward – onto shaky, competitive ground, yes, but so far, he hasn't had to take any steps back.

It's on day fourteen of the new plan—seventeen days after the last Town Hall—that Malfoy sits down in the chair next to Ron, one that Ash has just vacated, and says, "So."

"So?" Ron asks after a moment, when it becomes apparent that Malfoy isn't going to continue.

"I didn't think you'd last this long," Malfoy says, finally. "You've never been able to act for shit."

"Maybe I'm not acting," Ron says. "Maybe one day you will actually believe that."

Malfoy stares at him for a long moment, then nods, almost looking defeated. "Maybe," he says, which from Malfoy might as well be a 'yes, I believe.' Then he gestures for a barmaid and says, "One of whatever Weasley's having."

The barmaid hurries away, and Ron is left sitting next to a Malfoy who isn't radiating hostility or disbelief or even very much cunning. Instead, Malfoy is leaning across the table to ask Ro a question about her and Ash's band, is making small talk with Marietta and Torrence, is letting Alex welcome him into the fold.

Maybe he's been lonely, Ron thinks. After all, it's no secret that Nott has not welcomed Malfoy into the inner circle the way everyone might have expected him to. Or maybe, Ron thinks, Malfoy is continuing to embrace his opportunistic tendencies. Maybe, just maybe, Malfoy thinks that Ron may not end up as an independent number two with leverage, but instead might end up being the most important man in the room. Maybe he wants to ally himself with the winner.

Which, if that's the case… If that's the case, maybe Ron's plan is working a little bit too well.

Whatever Malfoy's reasons, Ron sits back and watches the people at his table, listens to the happy hum of voices, and thinks, _if only Harry could see me now_.

* * *

Nott has not just been sitting idly by, letting his followers warm up to Ron, though. No, he's been traveling all around the country, holding Town Hall meetings, small informal gatherings, giving street corner sermons, anything to get his word out, and the sad, scary thing is: his spiel, his _shtick_ , is working.

No longer is he just speaking to the malcontents and those that prefer to operate on the darker side of the magical spectrum; no, during the meetings that have been projected into the _Snitch_ , Ron has noticed new faces in the audience. Motherly looking sorts, grandfathers, teenagers. People, Ron thinks, who should _really know better_. Who should be able to see that Nott is _not_ the wave of the future. That he's trying to make history repeat itself.

Some of these new faces are even showing up at the _Snitch_ , looking just as out of place as Ron knows he must have looked those first few days, before Knockturn Alley started to seep into his bones, to wear him down around the edges. Mostly it's people he doesn't know, although Alex—in true Alex fashion—welcomes them all and makes sure to introduce each and every one of them to Ron.

Most of the new faces gravitate towards Nott's end of the room during their first few visits, but then they start shifting down towards Ron's end of the room, too, and—

And Ron doesn't even really know what to think about any of this. He doesn't know whether this new plan is working or whether it's already most of the way towards blowing the whole operation. Nott's cronies don't look pleased with him, that is true, but whether it's because in their eyes he is still Ron Weasley, Gryffindor, or because he is creating his own circle of friends, Ron doesn't know.

What he does know is that after two weeks of rare visits to the main room of the pub, Nott spends three straight nights there, laughing loudly, toasting the room at large, standing up on tables to welcome their new brothers and sisters in the Cause.

On the fourth night after Nott's return, Ron can feel something different in the air, and he knows he's not the only one. Malfoy, sitting next to Ron, in the spot he almost seems to have adopted as his own, is radiating a tension that he hasn't seemed to in quite a few days, and Ron wishes he could ask why.

He wishes that he had a reason to ask.

Perhaps sensing the question, Malfoy says, "Rumor has it we're going to get another round of speeches tonight. Somehow I'm betting he doesn't make _this_ speech with his arm around your shoulder, yeah?"

Ron snorts into his drink.

Indeed, not ten minutes later, Nott steps from the floor, to a chair, to his table, and hoists his mug of ale into the air.

"My brothers and sisters," he says, pitching his voice to carry. "Tonight, my friends, tonight I have exciting news." He pauses, letting the anticipation build. "Tonight our campaign has gained a measure of legitimacy that few thought we could ever achieve." Another pause, another breath. "I will admit that I myself had doubts when I embarked upon this journey, as to whether our world was ready to hear what we had to say. But it is through your support in the face of our opposition that we are standing here today. That we have reached this point."

He takes a swig of his ale, and Ron tries to imagine what words will come out of his mouth next.

"My friends, it is my great pleasure to announce that I challenged our esteemed Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, to debate me in a public forum, and he has agreed. Even a month ago, we all know that he would not have done so. A month ago, we were just a band of radicals out of touch with the common wizard.

"But, my friends, you have proven to the world that this is not so. You have shown that it is our Minister _himself_ who is out of touch. You have proven that we will not sit quietly back and let the Ministry dictate how we live our lives. You have shown me that I am not the only one who is _proud_ to be a _Wizard_."

Another swig from his mug. He licks the foam from his upper lip.

"So in two weeks, my brothers and sisters, Minister Fudge and I shall meet in a yet to be determined location and pitch our ideas to the world. In two weeks, we shall show the world that we are not simply a collection of crackpots and radicals, but that we are, in fact, the future.

"In two weeks, my friends, we will state our case to the world, and they will _see_ how much we believe. And then, my brothers, my sisters, they shall come to believe, too."

It's a faster speech than Ron is used to hearing Nott give—not as much give and take with the audience—but it doesn't stop the clapping and hollering, the excited energy that fills the room. Because Nott is right: a month ago, Fudge would have laughed Nott out of the room. It scares Ron that Fudge didn't do so now.

So, he plasters a smile on his face, raises his glass to toast Nott, to toast Percy, and tries to figure out how long he can wait before excusing himself to go back to his flat and pace.

When he lowers his glass after the fifth toast, he sees that Malfoy is looking at him, and Ron can't deal with his suspicions any longer, so he just says, "To the cause."

"To the cause," Draco says in return, and then Alex and Ash and Ro pick it up, and there's toast number six, echoing around the room.

To the cause.

* * *

What Ron wants to do is write another letter to the Inspector, to ask why? Why did Fudge agree to the debate? Why are they going to allow Nott to be legitimized in this way, exposed to the masses? _Why?_

He can't, though. The more often he contacts the Inspector, the more likely someone is to catch on, blow his cover. So, he bites his tongue and smiles as genuinely as he can anytime that he's not locked in the privacy of his own room. Because indeed, the whole population of Knockturn Alley appears to be smiling. And with every day that passes, they look less like Nott's self-described crackpots and radicals and more like a unified movement, touching all spectrums. Gaining mainstream legitimacy.

He's afraid to think that some of these people—the grandparents, the mothers, the teenagers just barely out of Hogwarts or Beauxbaton—are here because of him. Because he made people take a second look at Nott's cause, Percy's cause. He almost wants to voice this thought so he can hear Malfoy say, 'You have far too high an opinion of yourself, Weasley. Why in the world would anyone follow _you_?'

He wants to believe that that is the case. He almost does.

Except for the fact that he can't walk down the streets of Knockturn Alley now without being stopped at least three times by people who want to chat.

And when customers leave the bookshop, they say things like, "See you tonight at the _Snitch_ , yeah?"

He has his own spot at his own table now, Malfoy on one side, Alex on the other, and when Ron makes a toast— a spontaneous 'To the cause!', or to announce that Ash and Ro have booked a gig beyond their ramshackle flat, or to congratulate Marietta on the rather large diamond that Torrence gave her, making predictions as to their future happiness—three-quarters of the increasingly full room joins in.

A week before the scheduled debate, Ron leaves the _Snitch_ , walks back to his room as quickly as he can, and sits down on the chair in front of the fire and lets himself hyperventilate. Twenty minutes to work himself into a complete and utter panic, an hour to work himself down from it, and when he's breathing normally again, he tells himself that that's it.

No more worrying.

For better or for worse, it's too late to turn back now.

* * *

The morning of the debate dawns too bright, too clear.

It should be gray, Ron thinks, and cloudy. Rainy. Possibly with added thunder and lightening. Ron has never been one to look too far beneath the surface of anything, trying to read things into events that are almost surely random, but if there was ever an event that deserved to be seeped in as much symbolism as possible, he's pretty sure that this is it.

But, no. There's no dark and foreboding weather, nothing that signifies the political storm that they all know is gathering on the horizon. Instead, it's sunny and cold, and to Ron, at least, it feels as if the whole population of Knockturn Alley is out, filling the streets, ready to cheer their hero on.

It's a bit after noon when Ron joins the throng that's making its way to the designated venue for the debate, a circle that's at the center of six streets: three wending their way out of the bowels of Knockturn Alley, another three cutting their way down from Diagon Alley. The streets in this part of the Alley have always been cleaner than those that Ron has grown used to, but today the cobblestones almost appear to have been magically scrubbed; boarded up windows have been replaced with glass; the signs above shops look to have been repainted.

The Alley, trying to show off.

He's only just entered the circle when he feels a tap on the shoulder, and turns to see Marietta and Ro, with Torrence, Alex, Ash, and Malfoy right behind. Goyle and Pansy are trailing even farther back. Ron's smile is genuine, and Marietta gives him a hug, Torrence and Alex clapping him on the back. Malfoy nods and falls into step beside Ron. Because that's the way things work now.

Their group works their way into the crowd, and Alex and Ash are the ones to push, getting Ron far closer than he wants to be, but not as close as the Inspector would probably tell him that he should be. He's close enough, though. He doesn't need to be right up front.

Now that they've stopped, Ron turns to scan the crowd. The Inspector must be here, he thinks, but he's not the one that Ron finds first. Instead, standing all of the way across the circle, he sees Harry and Hermione. They aren't alone. They're huddled together with Neville, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Seamus and Dean, other people from the Aurors, the Ministry.

He doesn't realize that he's gone tense until Malfoy, standing at Ron's elbow, says, "Well. Look who's decided to join us. Think they've seen the proverbial light?"

Ron snorts, which makes Alex look at him, and then follow Malfoy's gaze. "Ah, the fair-weather friends," he says, sounding unbearably prim and proper, and it almost seems to be a cue for the rest of Ron's group to huddle around him even more tightly. To insulate him from his former life. Ron has a moment of wanting to protest, to say that _he_ was the one— _He_ was the betrayer. _He—_

But then Alex starts telling one of his stories—something about his and Ash's first attempts at riding their father's broom, without their father's permission, and, because he's Alex, the retelling is rife with sound effects and flailing arms and immediately draws the ears of those surrounding them, drawing attention to who exactly is standing in their midst.

Ron can hear the whispers start: _Ron Weasley, look it's Weasley, Ron, Ron, Percy's brother._ He's almost immune to it now, almost, and he makes himself focus on Ash's version of events, which involves far less flailing and a far longer description of the three broken windows on the top floor of their house and their two-month grounding. Literally.

"Pshaw," Alex says. "It was two days, tops."

"Because two days later we got grounded for the thing with the garden gnomes," Ash says, which makes Alex laugh and say, "Yes! I'd forgotten all about that!"

So then he starts telling about the garden gnomes, and Ron has had enough experience with garden gnomes that he laughs just as loudly as everyone else who's listening.

Until he glances to his right and sees, across the crowd, that Harry and Hermione and company have also worked their way up towards the stage, far enough forward that they're standing even with Ron and his group. Until he sees that both Harry and Hermione are glaring at him, the rest of their group huddled around them. Just as Ron's group is doing for him.

"Ignore them," Malfoy says, like it should be the simplest thing in the world to do. Perhaps, for him, it is; he did spend seven years practicing, after all.

"Right," Ron says. "Right."

It's ingrained habit to nod a greeting, though, and Ron finds himself doing it even as he turns away. He catches himself midway through, and quickly turns his attention back to Alex and Ash, so he doesn't have to see Harry and Hermione fail to respond.

Because they no longer consider him to be their friend.

Because they think he betrayed them.

He's saved—if one wants to call it being saved—by the first apparation onto the stage that's been set up on the north side of the circle. It's Kingsley Shacklebolt, the moderator for the day's event, and he's followed closely by McNair and a witch from Fudge's cabinet, then more of Nott's inner circle, equally matched in numbers by those from the Ministry.

Finally, finally, there are two final snaps and Nott and Fudge appear on the stage, applause echoing off the buildings that line the circle. Nott and Fudge both stride towards each other to shake the other's hand, then move to their lecterns. As the candidates test the sound on the stage, to make sure that they can be each be plainly heard, Ron takes the opportunity to look over his shoulder again. He looks at Harry and Hermione first—how can he not?—and sees that they are both staring pointedly and deliberately at the stage. They might be the only ones in their group, though: Neville is looking at him with a sad expression; Justin is gnawing on the tip of his quill, a bad journalistic habit; and both Seamus and Dean are staring at him with unreadable looks on their faces.

Ron looks beyond them and sees that the circle is packed to capacity, with hundreds of other faces lining the streets leading into impromptu arena. The Alley denizens telling the world that they deserve to have a voice, too.

Finally, there's the sound of a throat clearing, and Ron focuses his attention back on the stage, sees Kingsley standing at the edge, saying, "Your attention! Your attention, please. We are ready to begin. We are ready to begin today's debate."

Slowly, the volume in the circle drops.

And so it begins.

The questions are, of course, ones that Ron has heard before: What is your vision of the future? What will you do to make this happen? What can we learn from the past?

Ron knows that for Nott, at least, it's not the questions that matter. It's the chance for him to present himself as logical, sane, pro-Wizard (but not anti-Muggle) and not at all like Voldemort, he promises, to a much larger audience than he's ever had in the past. And the problem is: he does sound logical and sane, not at all like a crackpot radical. He's taken Percy's ravings and turned them into a logical argument that even Ron, if he didn't know better, would find persuasive.

It is persuasive.

And Fudge, who has been Minister of Magic for so long that everyone is able to repeat almost all his positions verbatim, doesn't have as much luck piercing cracks in Nott's stances as Ron wishes he would. Because Nott is not Voldemort. Because Nott is able to say that he has espoused peace—which publically, at least, he has. Because Nott is a fantastic public speaker, and Fudge is… Fudge, trying to use logic in the face of charisma.

Nott, as always, engages in a back and forth with the crowd, calls them his friends, his brothers and sisters, and speaks of a world where witches and wizards embrace their heritage, where there are less restrictions on the magic they can perform, where they don't let Muggles dictate how they run their lives, but learn to live with Muggles in harmony. His half of the crowd shouts their encouragement, applauds as loudly as they can. Ron tries to tell himself that he's imagining things, but he's rather sure that the noise gets louder, the further into the debate they get.

Because Fudge—Lord help them all—does not have his people's confidence. Because lying low, preserving the fragile balance they've built with the Muggles thus far, maintaining the status quo doesn't sound nearly as exciting as Nott's vision.

Because they are all proud to be witches and wizards.

 _Because they don't want to hide_.

But they must.

To do otherwise would be to court war with the Muggles, because no matter what Nott promises, the Wizarding world no longer—and with good reason—has the trust of the Muggle establishment.

Because Nott—or so Ron and the Inspector really and truly believe—has never planned on winning this election. It's what will happen afterwards, when he loses, that he's been building towards.

So, Ron listens. He listens, puts on the act that he's supposed to put on, and tries to ignore his best friends standing only a few hundred meters away.

He can't ignore them forever, though, because indeed, after the debate has wrapped up—Fudge's people claiming victory through logic, Nott's associates claiming that he carried the crowd—Ron finds himself once again the focus of Harry's glare. He wants to apparate, because Ron has a sinking sensation that he knows where this is going, but he makes himself stand his ground, listening to Alex and Ro deconstruct the goings on.

He doesn't watch Harry draw closer, but he does hear Seamus say, "Harry, perhaps this is a bad idea." That's all the warning he gets before a fist connects with his cheek and nose, and he finds himself pulling a blood-red hand away from his face.

"You bastard," Harry says. "You _right fucking bastard_. You utter prick. You— Let me go. Let me _go!_ " When Ron looks up from the blood, he sees that Neville and Seamus are holding Harry back, because Harry is spitting mad, as mad Ron has ever seen him. Ron's group has gathered around him, all of them looking balefully at Harry, and Alex is pushing up his sleeves, preparing for a fight.

"I see you've still maintained your impeccable manners," Malfoy sneers, and that seems to be the next final straw, that Ron is hanging out with _Malfoy_ , because Harry lunges again, and this time, it takes both Dean and Justin adding their weight to the pile to hold him back.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Harry asks. "Don't I at least deserve a reason why you threw away twelve years of friendship to come _here_?"

 _I didn't_ , Ron wants to say. _I haven't. You just don't know it yet._

"It was a matter of principle," Ron says instead, and he notices that they're starting to attract a crowd of their own. Not as big a crowd as the one still surrounding Nott—and not all of them are people who were originally standing on Nott's side. Bugger. Fuck it all to fucking hell. "You actually think the status quo is working? You actually want to spend the rest of your life _hiding_?"

"That's not—" Hermione starts, and Ron knows that she's going to launch into one of her speeches about right and wrong, pointing out everything that's wrong with Nott's platform (as if Ron doesn't know Nott's list of sins better than anyone else in the Ministry) and everything that's right with Fudge's.

"It _is_ ," Ron says. "That is exactly what it's about. It's about acknowledging that we are _Wizards_ , that the Muggles should be _thanking_ us for sharing our talents with them, that—"

And then he stops, because the problem is, Ron's still an Auror. The problem is, his training is too ingrained, and so when he catches sight of a red-cloaked figure with a bared knife in his hand, starting to push his way through the crowd towards Nott, he reacts before he can think.

As he's been trained to do.

He shoves his hand into his pocket, grips his wand, and pictures himself standing in the small space next to Nott. He apparates, and then he's there, next to Nott, shoving him to the ground even as Red Cloak pushes his way past the last few people, the knife already coming down, right where Nott had been standing. Into space that Ron's bicep is currently occupying.

It takes Red Cloak a moment to realize that he has missed Nott entirely, and has, instead, sliced Ron.

He lets out a barely coherent scream of rage, something about his sister's death being on all of their heads, and brings the knife back down, aiming for Nott again, or possibly Ron, but this time Nott's security detail is on top of it, and tackles the man. Fudge's Aurors come running, and as the man is taken into custody, Ron wonders if they're going to grab him, too. He _is_ still a wanted man, after all. He ducks his head, but it's impossible to hide who he is—his height, his ginger hair is too distinctive—but the Aurors pay him no mind.

Perhaps it's the Inspector's doing.

Or perhaps what Ron heard that first day in Knockturn Alley is true: no one in the Alley is caught unless Nott wants them to be caught. And he doesn't want Ron to be caught.

That's when he registers the pain in his arm and realizes that now he's got two wounds spouting blood, and he should probably do something about that, except Nott beats him to it, casting two spells in quick succession, healing Ron right up.

He stares at Ron for a long moment then, and all Ron can do is stare back. Finally Nott nods and says, "My brother, please join us tonight. I have, perhaps, been remiss in not inviting you up to my private rooms thus far."

All Ron can do is nod in return. And try not to let out too heavy a breath of relief. Because this.

This.

 _This_.

His moment of triumph is short lived, however, as he turns around to find Harry and all of their friends staring at him, like they don't know him. Hermione looks to be on the verge of tears, and Neville is pale, but Harry's eyes are flashing green, furious. He stares at Ron for another long moment, takes a determined step forward, and then seems to change his mind, apparating away. Hermione gives Ron another sad look, then follows suit.

And Ron has a moment to think: if he'd let Red Cloak get to Nott, this could have been over. If he'd let Red Cloak do his worst, he might have been able to go home tonight, show up at Harry's door and explain everything. He could have told Hermione that he was sorry. That he still— That—

He could have told his mum that he was— That he hadn't—

But.

But the Inspector's voice echoes in his head.

 _We can't let Nott become a martyr to the Cause_ , he'd said many months ago. Percy's Kiss at the hands of the Dementors had done more for the Cause than anything else had, and the last thing anyone needed was for Nott's death to add more fuel to the flames. Nott and his Cause are dangerous enough as it is.

Malfoy is the first of Ron's group to reach him, and he looks a little bit shocked with Ron's act of heroism. He narrows his eyes, studying Ron. Again. Like maybe a small piece of him still thought Ron had been faking it this whole time. Just a sliver. Ron's given up trying to decipher Malfoy's motives, though, so he says, "I'm going upstairs tonight."

Malfoy raises an eyebrow.

"So the lapdog gets his reward in the end," he says finally.

A month ago, he wouldn't have done this. A week ago, he probably wouldn't even have done this. Maybe. But now, in this moment, he flips Malfoy off, a friendly, teasing gesture. Malfoy laughs.

"So this is where I tell you that I'm going to ride your coattails to the top, yeah?"

"I'm only going up," Ron says.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron sees a whisper of black fur running away. He probably imagines hearing the small snap of apparation.

Ron's contact, on his way to see the Inspector. No coded message required.

* * *

The shock that night is not how much more crowded the _Snitch_ seems to be. No, the shock is that Ron sees four more Hufflepuffs, five more Ravenclaws, and ten more Slytherins.

And also Seamus.

He grins sheepishly at Ron, like he's not quite sure what he's doing there, and when he says, "I think I heard some things today… And, I mean, if _you're_ here…" Ron feels his blood run cold. Literally.

Icy sweat prickles in his armpits, on the palms of his hands.

He thinks: Bloody buggering _fuck_.

He thinks: _Fuck_ Nott, _fuck_ Percy, and _fuck the fucking Inspector all the fucking way to America and fucking back_.

Instead, he says what he should say: "It's good to see you, mate. _Bloody hell_." If he sounds just a little bit too empathetic, he's sure it can be written off as happiness over seeing his friend. Not the fact that what he really wants to do is go back outside and scream until his throat is bloody and raw.

After all, a Ron Weasley who truly supported the cause would be gleeful at getting his friends to _finally_ see the light. To see his side. To see that he hadn't truly thrown his whole life away for nothing.

"Join us," he says, and Ash and Ro make room for Seamus on the other side of the table from Ron. Malfoy is glaring at Seamus in the same way that he's spent the last several weeks glaring at Ron, and Ron can't actually figure out if Seamus' arrival is a good thing or a bad thing.

"Things are not good," Seamus says after Alex has ordered him a drink, after Malfoy has proposed an only slightly sarcastic toast to the Gryffindor reunion. "They aren't good out there. Fudge is—he's desperate. His numbers are falling, and Justin's saying that the Prime Minister—of the Muggles, yeah. My dad's people—that he wants _more_ concessions and—"

"And none of the things that happened are our fault," Alex says.

Which is true for nearly everyone at their table – Seamus and Ron most of all, given that they were fighting with Harry.

"We're not the Death Eaters," Ash adds. Then, after looking at Malfoy, he says, "Well, not anymore."

"And so I thought," Seamus continues, "you know, that maybe I'd come hear more. That maybe Nott is saying some things which are worth listening to."

"He is," Ron says, and he—

He wants to break cover and tell Seamus that this is all bullocks, that Nott is a megalomaniac in training, that he may not be Voldemort, but that there should probably be a _yet_ tacked onto the end of that sentence. But, he can't. Just like he couldn't tell Harry or Hermione the truth. Or his parents.

Just like he has to live this _lie_ until the moment comes when it's over with, done with.

Just.

Just.

 _Fuck_.

He drinks his first cider too quickly, then sips his second one slowly, and it's only when he sees Nott rise at the far end of the room that Ron remembers he received the coveted invitation earlier this afternoon. He wants to say, _forget it_. He doesn't want to leave Seamus with these people who will fill his head with reasons he should join them. He wants to make Seamus leave, to rewind life an hour and a half, to rewind life _two years_. He just wants—

He stands up.

Torrence and Alex slap Ron on the back as he passes them by; Malfoy and Seamus just stare: Malfoy with an eyebrow raised, an almost challenge, and Seamus in a confused manner. Alex, Ron sees, wastes no time on filling him in.

"He got invited upstairs," Ron hears Alex say as he weaves his way through the tables and chairs, forcing his feet to move just a little more quickly than they seem to want to, so he can follow McNair and DuPré up the staircase. It's curved, rickety, and Ron knows that his heart is pounding too loudly in his chest as he climbs, tired and frustrated and not wanting to do this at all anymore.

It's not until he's at the first curve in the staircase that another thought enters his brain. It's possible that Nott didn't invite him upstairs tonight just because Ron quite possibly saved his life this afternoon. There could be ulterior motives.

He could know that this has all been a set up.

Or maybe Ron has played his hand too far, is gathering too much of a following of his own, and Nott's going to do whatever he needs to do to eliminate the threat.

Maybe—

Maybe—

He takes a deep breath as he steps into Nott's room, and finds it dark, the walls covered with thick rugs, the furniture done in dark woods and forest green. Because you can take the Slytherin out of Hogwarts, Ron thinks, but in the end, he'll always be a Slytherin.

"Welcome, Brother Weasley, to my humble abode," Nott says, and Ron wonders if his voice truly sounds slightly mocking, or if Ron is being paranoid. "Please, make yourself at home."

Ron takes one of the straight-backed chairs near the kitchenette and watches as Holden pours them all a round of drinks. Firewhiskey.

 _Strong_ firewhiskey.

"To Brother Weasley," Nott says, "who has proven to be as loyal as his brother was."

"Brother Weasley," the rest of the assemblage says, raising their glasses to him, and Ron ducks his head. He can't think of any other way to respond.

They all drink, Ron trying not to cough at the sharp bite of it in his throat.

They rehash the debate, with McNair and Holden doing imitations of a bumbling Fudge, and DuPré mentioning some points that Nott could have been clearer on, some holes in Fudge's arguments. After, when the group is starting to break up, Nott comes to sit beside Ron.

"I saw that Finnegan was sitting at your table downstairs," he says. "Did he come to try to woo you back to the side of the light?"

Again, Ron wants to lie, to say yes, yes, that's exactly what Seamus was trying to do, but a lie at this point could be catastrophic, especially if Seamus keeps showing up, again and again.

"He heard some things today," Ron says, each word feeling heavy on his tongue. "His dad is a Muggle, you know. He liked what you said today."

Nott nods, as if this is his due, and Ron thinks that he looks pleased. Too pleased.

Bugger. Bugger. _Fuck_.

"Then perhaps," he says, "I should spend more time emphasizing those points. Perhaps, brother, we may just win this thing yet."

* * *

The next day, Malfoy stops by the shop. Goyle stands by the door, glowering in Ron's direction for too many moments, before being distracted by a witch, waving on the front cover of her biography.

"So was it illuminating?" he asks. "Life changing?"

"They spent an hour insulting Fudge," Ron says, and Malfoy nods, as if that was to be expected.

"But was it everything you'd hoped for?" he asks. "You did spend oh-so-long working for your reward, after all."

If Ron hadn't had ulterior motives, he would have given up wanting to go upstairs over a month ago, when it became obvious that an invitation was not going to be forthcoming. If he'd been in this only to raise his own profile, after the last few weeks he would have _preferred_ to stay downstairs, letting his own ever-growing group of hangers on buoy him up. Truly, there was no good reason for him to have waited so long for that elusive invite. So, he gives the only answer that he can: "I want to see my brother's vision become reality."

Malfoy nods again.

"Someday you'll stop being suspicious of me," Ron says, because he's tired. Because he's counting down the hours until five o'clock. Until he can see if Seamus appears again.

"I'm not—" Malfoy starts, then stops, and it's _that_ that makes Ron actually believe him, because Malfoy would have no issue telling Ron that he still didn't believe. Which is—

Well.

Ron doesn't actually know what that means.

* * *

For about twenty seconds, Ron stands in the middle of the street and debates whether or not he should go into the _Snitch_ for drinks. He could go home. No one would think it odd; he has spent the last five nights in a row there, after all. Everyone needs a night to themselves every once in awhile. And if he doesn't go into the _Snitch_ he doesn't have to deal with Seamus being there. Or not being there. Or. Anything, really.

But to not be there the night after going up to Nott's rooms, when Alex and Torrence and Marietta and their whole crew will be expecting to hear all about it… When Nott might look for him… When he he's finally, _finally_ made progress of the sort that the Inspector is wanting… He can't skip out now.

So, he goes in.

And feels his heart sink to his knees when yes, Seamus is sitting at their table. When he sees that he's laughing at something that _Malfoy_ is saying. When they all look up and wave at him, and Ron has to wave, smile back, make his way over to them.

Second verse, same as the first: bloody buggering _fuck_.

Still: the selfish part of his brain, the part that doesn't want to think about Meaning and The Future, is glad that Seamus is here. Is glad that there's now someone who knows him, who's lived with him, who hasn't always associated him with The Cause. With whom he can be Ron, and not Percy's little brother.

So, he lets himself laugh at the stories Seamus tells of their days at Hogwarts, defends himself against Malfoy's own—amazingly enough _friendly_ —barbs and, when the time comes to go upstairs with Nott, he tries to pretend that all is right with his world.

* * *

That night, before he leaves the _Snitch_ , he takes a napkin from the bar, borrows a quill from the register, and writes two words, the ink seeping and blotching across the paper.

He doesn't code them, because they aren't for the Inspector. Because they don't say anything he hasn't put to parchment before.

 _I'm sorry_.

Because he knows what it's like to lose your best friend.

He crumples the ball and sticks it in his pocket and when he passes the rubbish heap, he throws it away. He doesn't stick around to listen for rustling, or for apparation. He just… walks away.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Some days, he thinks that when this is over, he won't ever be able to say it enough.

* * *

The fourth night after the debate, Nott joins Ron's table.

It's—

Ron's not actually sure what to think, because one moment Malfoy is regaling them with a story about house elves, and the next, Nott is saying, "That doesn't sound anything like the Linty _I_ remember, and I feel as if I knew Linty pretty well," as he takes an empty chair from the next table over and pulls it up to Ron's own.

Ash and Alex immediately make room.

For once, Alex does not seem to know what to say.

"Linty was on her best behavior whenever we had company," Malfoy says, his words clipped. "I think that I would know."

"Yes, you would," Nott says. Then he nods at the table at large, and says, "Forgive my intrusion. I thought I would try to experience the _Snitch_ from this side of the room tonight."

 _Why?_ Ron wants to ask, because changes in routine make him nervous. Because he honestly doesn't know why Nott would be here. He can't think of one good reason. Unless Ron's star is still shining brightly and Nott wants to make it fade, just a little.

At the other end of the room, McNair and Holden glower. DuPré looks thoughtful.

There is a moment of awkward silence, as the rest of Ron's table appears to be too star-struck to know what to say, and Ron is too confounded to think up a way to start the conversation.

"So in other words, you needed a break from fawning sycophants?" Malfoy asks.

Nott snorts. "Something like that. Or perhaps I realized that I have been remiss in meeting all of these new faces that have come to join our Cause. Finnegan, I cannot tell you how happy I am that you have seen fit to listen to our words. You always struck me as among the more open-minded of the Gryffindors."

"I—" Seamus starts. "Well, I— As I was telling Ron, things are rather a mess out there right now. But I'm sure you know that."

"I know that our numbers grow every day," Nott says. "I know that people are beginning to listen."

"Sometimes people need a choice," Seamus says.

"And not between the lesser of two evils," Alex adds. "And people are starting to realize that there is but one evil in this race, and that evil is not sitting here in this room."

"I will toast to that," Nott says, and—

And Nott is smart, Ron thinks. Because Ron is the second most powerful man in the room, yes, but Nott is the most powerful, and Ron's group, perhaps, needed to be reminded of that. They needed to be reminded that they are here for him, not for Ron.

So, Ron listens as Nott sits and talks: reiterating the talking points that had brought Seamus through the front door, the points had brought so many others to his side. Because sitting here, like this, gives him a chance to interact with his people in a way that he hasn't in quite awhile.

Malfoy—being Malfoy—interjects wry comments every few minutes, and then he, Goyle and Nott mention some in Slytherin joke of some sort, which sets them all off. Ron finds himself glancing at Seamus, trying to share the Gryffindor exasperation regarding Slytherins with someone who understands and for a few minutes, at least, it's as if they're all back at Hogwarts, living a simpler life.

Where the person Ron trusts most in this new life of his isn't his best friend's sworn enemy; where the people he cares about aren't falling for Nott's shtick; where he hasn't spent two years of his life working to make sure that he is in the right place at the right time, trusting that the Inspector is right.

After two hours of talk, when Nott finally gets up to go upstairs, he looks at Ron, as if to ask if he's coming. Ron shakes his head. "Not tonight," he says.

If he had to defend the choice, he'd say that if Nott is choosing to reassert his importance to Ron's group, it's just as important for Ron to remind everyone that he is not Nott's lapdog.

In reality, though, he's tired.

In reality, with Seamus sitting across from him, and memories of Hogwarts so close to the surface of his brain, he wants to let himself revel in them for just a little bit longer. He's not quite yet ready to return to the real world.

"Draco?" Nott asks, and that makes both Malfoy and Ron snap their heads up, because that was… unexpected. Because Malfoy had, perchance, been even more of an outcast from Nott's group than Ron had been.

Malfoy looks at Ron, then back at Nott.

"Not tonight," he echoes, and Nott nods, looking… unsurprised, and as he leaves, all Ron can do is look at Malfoy, and think, _what the—_? From the look on Malfoy's face, Ron is pretty sure that he isn't the only one wondering the same thing.

* * *

When Ron gets back to his flat that night, there's a black cat sitting on his bed.

Ron's wand is raised and pointed before the door shuts behind him, but before he can say anything, the creature shimmers and unfolds into a man.

Dean Thomas stands, walks over to Ron, and punches him in the face.

"You're _sorry_?" he asks.

"I am," Ron says. "Fuck, Dean, you have to know that I am."

"He's my best bloody friend," Dean says, "and at the rate you're adopting him, I'm going to have to be the one to put him behind bars."

"And how am I supposed to get him out of the _Snitch_?" Ron asks. "If you have any bright ideas for ways to do it without blowing my cover, I'd love to hear them. I'm not the one who's actually in the position to talk any sense into him."

"I can't—" Dean starts, and then his shoulders slump, and he sits down on the end of Ron's bed. He closes his eyes. "I tried. I fucking— Harry fucking— But no, he just wanted to _listen_ , he just wanted to—" He looks up at Ron again. "I hate Nott. I hate your brother, and a little bit of me even hates you right now, for being so damn convincing. For making people take another look at this bloody Cause."

"I know," Ron says. "But if the Inspector is right—and you and I both know that he is—the alternative will be so much worse."

Dean nods. There's not much else he can do.

"Hanging out with Malfoy was a nice touch," Dean says, staring at the floor again. "Harry spent four hours at the dueling range after we left. I'm pretty sure he might have swished and flicked so much that he strained something."

"Nott invited Malfoy upstairs tonight," Ron says, and Dean raises his head at that. Something new to tell the Inspector. "I don't know why. Malfoy didn't know why. Unless he's trying to consolidate the power in the room. Because the Malfoy name still holds some sway."

"Not as much as Weasley," Dean says.

"No, not as much as Weasely," Ron says. Then he snorts, because even four years ago, that sentence would have never been something anyone would have believed.

Dean nods, then stands.

"I'm sorry," he says, gesturing at Ron's nose. Ron will fix it after he leaves.

" _I'm_ sorry," Ron says. Because he is. Because he'd honestly thought that his reputation was going to be the only casualty of this mess. He swallows. "I'll try to keep him safe, though. If I can. I'll try."

"That's all I ask," Dean says. Then, with a shimmer, his body folds into its cat shape, and he apparates out of Ron's room. On his way to the Inspector, probably. Back to the life that he still gets to lead, the life Ron wishes were his own.

* * *

The next night, Nott isn't there.

Ron has a brief moment of kicking himself for not going upstairs the night before, because then he'd _know_ where Nott was, he wouldn't feel out of the loop. But then one of the barmaids stokes the fire, and Nott's voice fills the room. Brothers. Sisters. Friends. The same lilting tones; a new emphasis on his warm, happy, fuzzy feelings towards Muggles. In fact, he is proud to number half-bloods among his followers. It doesn't matter to him if you've descended from Godric Gryffindor or woke up yesterday and discovered that you had these powers that you just didn't understand, what mattered to him is that you were _Wizard_.

Next to Ron, Seamus nods. Malfoy grows more and more tense. Down the table, Goyle glowers.

When Ron gets up to leave that night, Malfoy rises too. Goyle starts to stand, but Malfoy says, "I'll meet up with you tomorrow, Greg, yeah?" and Goyle has no choice but to nod. He sits back down and says something to Pansy that Ron wishes he could hear.

Which is how Malfoy and Ron leave the _Snitch_ together.

Which is how Malfoy ends up back in Ron's room, his lip curling as he takes in the shabby nature of it all.

"Ladies and gents, Knockturn Alley's five-star accommodations."

"Fuck off," Ron says. Then, "So? I know that after two and a half months, you didn't just decide you wanted to come back to my room for a nightcap. Especially since I am sadly lacking in the alcohol department."

Malfoy grimaces, then surveys the room one more time, before walking over to the armchair and gingerly perching on its edge. Ron moves over to the window that edges his sitting area and leans against the sill.

"He's up to something," Malfoy says. "First he asks you upstairs, then me, and I want to know _why_. I want to know what he's thinking."

Ron can't say, 'I was just discussing this with Dean Thomas yesterday, and this is what we thought...' He can't say, 'Well, the Inspector and I think…' He can't wait too long, but he takes the moments he has and weighs what he wants to say with what he should say.

"Everyone thought it would be you," he says finally. It's risky, talking about the past, before he defected. It's so easy to misstep, to say the wrong thing.

Malfoy raises one perfectly arched eyebrow.

"You might have chosen the right side at the end of the war, but… You're a Malfoy. And Malfoys like the spotlight, everyone knows that, and… We thought it would be you, rallying the troops, leading the charge."

"So, what. Nott thought I was a challenge?" He sounds almost a little bit hysterical as he says it, like it's the funniest thing in the world.

"I think, before I arrived, your name had the second largest pull in the room. I think, after Nott and I, it still does."

And Malfoy's thoughts apparently go to the same place that Ron and Dean's had, because he says, "So this is Nott trying to consolidate his following." A pause, then, "Is he planning something else? Do you know if he has anything else that he's planning?"

"If he does, he hasn't told me," Ron says, realizing just how slippery this slope is that he's on. He feels like he's walking a tightrope, in ice skates. "I just—I want my brother's dream to become reality. I want—"

"For Percy's sacrifice to have not been in vain. Yes, Weasely, we get it. We all get it. Your familial dedication will be the stuff of legends."

Ron flips Malfoy off again, and then they sit there in silence, until Malfoy finally gets up to leave.

* * *

When Ron entered Knockturn Alley that terrible, awful day so many weeks ago, he and the Inspector had only had a vague idea as to what Nott was planning. Namely, they knew that Nott he was sowing dissent, and no one—but especially not a _Slytherin_ —would go around sowing dissent without planning to reap _something_ in the end.

The Inspector, knowing Slytherins, knowing something of the darker edge of the magical world, was relatively sure that he knew what that something was.

Enter Ron.

Enter years of planning, months of lying to everyone that he cares about, weeks of being deep under cover, all building towards the endgame that Ron knows is on the horizon, even if he can't discern how they're going to get there yet.

Two nights after their conversation in Ron's room, Malfoy is sitting next to Ron on a far-too-comfortable sofa in Nott's room, drinking firewhiskey and acting as if he hasn't spent the last several months, possibly years, excluded downstairs. He's the one to toast Nott's latest returns—because _The Prophet_ shows that Nott's approval numbers are steadily rising. Enough so, and quickly enough, that Ron is beginning to wonder if the Inspector has a contingency plan in place, for what to do if Nott's Plan B succeeds before Plan A does.

Because he is still absolutely sure that Nott's decision to enter this race had nothing to do with actually winning.

Except: even in the close confines of his room, to his inner circle, Nott is saying things like: _when we win this_ and _that will be first on my agenda when I become Minister_ and Ron can't help but think that maybe, possibly, Nott is actually starting to believe his own hype.

Which.

Which is just—

But Ron isn't here to help Nott win this election; he's here to limit the fallout when Nott takes that inevitable final step, the one that Nott's been moving towards ever since Percy arrived at the _Snitch_ that first night.

Which is why, late that same night, with only two weeks to go before the actual election, Ron says, "What happens if we don't win?"

It's just him and Malfoy and Nott and DuPré and a few fingers of firewiskey left in the bottle, and Ron hopes, hopes that he's not being as obvious as he feels like he's being. That he's acting like a concerned brother, and not someone who's pointedly trying to gather information.

Malfoy looks at him just a bit too sharply, but Nott just pours himself another drink, sips at it, swallows. "We're going to win," Nott finally says, his voice lazy. "We're already winning. Our numbers our growing, our support is growing. The tides are changing, and our time is almost here."

"But what happens if we don't win," Ron asks again. "Some of us have given up our lives for the Cause and if we don't win, if we don't—"

"Do not _fear_ , Brother Weasley," Nott says again, an edge to his voice that wasn't there before. "We will win. In the end, we will win."

And that—

That was more than Ron was expecting. It was more than he'd let himself hope for.

Check, he thinks. Now all he has to do is figure out a way to get to checkmate.

* * *

While Ron may not feel as if he's stuck in the one step forward-two steps back dance any longer, for every step forward that he takes now, he seems to stand still for five times as long. Because Nott is too focused on these last days of the campaign. Because despite Nott's hints, no one is talking about the next step.

And the longer Ron spends with them, in Nott's company, the more he realizes that they all might actually believe Nott's hype, too.

Perhaps it's because they spend all day surrounded by the sycophants, by the people who do believe. Perhaps it's because when you aren't faced with any dissenting opinions, it's too easy to forget that such opinions exist.

But Ron has to believe that the rest of the Wizarding world is seeing through Nott's façade. He has to believe that what is _right_ will triumph in the end.

* * *

And then it does.

Because election day comes, and each witch and wizard casts their ballot, and half an hour after the polls close, Fudge is declared the winner, receiving 64% of the vote, which is 33% less than Ron wishes he'd received.

"Fraud," Ron hears a witch on the street say. "Rigged. I'd like to see those ballots, count them myself."

Tensions are running high; The Alley, Ron thinks, feels almost like a powder keg, waiting to explode. And this, Ron thinks. This is what the Inspector foresaw. This is what Nott was waiting for.

Even Malfoy seems to feel it, because when he pulls a chair up to Ron's table in the _Snitch_ , displacing a disheartened Seamus from Ron's side, he says, "Was it worth it, Weasley?" He says it quietly, but before Ron can respond, he feels a hand come down on his shoulder, squeeze.

"It will be worth it," Nott says. "It will be, because the fight, my brothers, has only just begun." There is a wild quality to his gaze that hasn't been there before—whether he's been careful to keep it masked, or whether this loss has pushed him over an unseen ledge, Ron doesn't know.

He sees that Malfoy is looking at him closely, though; this time, Ron is the one to look away.

* * *

Nott concedes.

He thanks his followers for his support.

He adds his voice to those casting doubt on the validity of the results. Wonders if their _Esteemed_ Minister Fudge will listen to the call of a full third of his people who wanted to embrace change, who believed that they, as wizards, could be something more.

He says everything that he's supposed to, and manages to fan the flames that are edging their way towards the proverbial powder keg at the same time.

If Ron's role in this whole ordeal hadn't just kicked into high gear, he'd be impressed. As it is, he just writes a letter to the Inspector that says, coded, _Be prepared._

* * *

Ron expects a council of war that first night.

He expects it the second night, then the third.

By the fourth night, the _Snitch_ filled to the brim with new faces, disheartened faces, he's almost to the point of not caring whether he's even worthy of being in the inner circle anymore, because all Nott has to do is announce his plans, and then Ron can finally make a move.

On day five, he realizes that Nott's silence is deliberate.

The Alley isn't so much a powder keg as it is a pot, simmering, just approaching a boil. Nott has left his people feeling as if their voices have been ignored, as if their one chance to make themselves heard has been pushed aside by a majority in which they do not approve. In his speeches, he's always been a fan of give and take, of his crowds working themselves into a frenzy, and now he's letting his training pay off.

The frenzy is building and all it will take is one spark, one sign that they don't have to be silent any longer, and the Alley will explode.

Ron barely sleeps at all that night.

On day six, Nott breaks the impasse.

He drops by the bookshop an hour before closing time, looking—well, not at all like the Nott that Ron has grown accustomed to. His hair is unkempt, his robe done up with the buttons in the wrong holes. He still looks as wild eyed as he did during his concession speech, and Ron is really, truly starting to think that Nott had actually _believed._

"My brother," Nott says. "My brother, the time has come to talk of the future. Will you join us? Will you help us bring your brother's vision to fruition?"

There is only one response that Ron can make to that: "I will," he says.

On the way to the _Snitch_ that night, he drops another ball of paper into the rubbish pile. On it, he's written, _Beginning?_ As he leaves, he sees a black cat sitting on the balcony above, grooming its ears.

So once again, Ron finds himself climbing the stairs to Nott's rooms. He's the fifth to arrive: DuPré and Nott sitting closest to the fire, Holden and McNair on the couch. Ron takes one of the straight-backed chairs, and when Malfoy arrives, he takes the other. The look he gives Ron is unreadable.

Once the rest of Nott's hangers on arrive, Nott pours them all a drink and says, "My brothers, my sisters, the time has come. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. I had prayed that it wouldn't come to this. But our prayers, our hopes, were not answered. There remains but one avenue open to us. Are you with me?"

"Yes," Ron says, echoed by everyone in the room but Malfoy. Because Malfoy has the luxury of _not_ being a lapdog.

"I believed, I _truly_ wanted to believe that we could achieve our goals through peaceful actions," he says. "But that was not to be. So this is what I propose, my friends. This is my proposal to you. Tomorrow we will hold a rally. We will rally our brothers and sisters to our cause, and we will offer them a choice. A choice between the status quo and a new future, a future where they would not have submit to the indignities of hiding from the Muggles. Where they would not be forced to live in hiding, in fear. I am willing to fight for that choice, my brothers, my sisters. Are you?"

And as the rest of the room nods, Ron thinks, oh thank Merlin.

He thinks, _check_ and _mate_.

It's about bloody fucking time.

* * *

He stays until the end of the meeting.

He stays until he is the only one left.

He stays, drinks one finger of firewhiskey as slowly as he can, so that he can say, "My brother would be proud."

"I think he would be," Nott says, and he says it fondly enough that Ron has a moment of wondering if Nott truly did like Percy. Wondering if maybe Nott hadn't just been using Percy and Percy's vision to achieve his own goals.

A small part of him hopes so.

He might have thought that Percy had completely lost it, there before the end, but Ron still loved—loves—him. He still misses him.

After he leaves, a clock in Diagon Alley striking three, Ron takes the roundabout way to the safe house, looking over his shoulder every half block to see if he's being followed. He doesn't see any sign that he is.

Once he lets himself in through the rickety door, he apparates to another safe house, then floos into the Inspector's office. Once he stumbles out of the fireplace, brushes the soot off of his robes, he sits down on a couch and waits for the alarm he tripped at his entrance to summon the Inspector to him.

The Inspector arrives less than five minutes later, looking as worn around the edges as Ron feels.

"It's time," Ron says, before the Inspector can ask any of the inevitable questions: _Has it all gone to shit? Has your cover been blown?_ Other things that Ron is probably not thinking of.

"Okay," the Inspector says, suddenly looking far more alert. "Okay. Let's hear it then."

Ron tells him.

Together, they make a plan.

* * *

It's close to six when Ron finally apparates back to the original safe house, and he's so tired that he can barely stand, his third, fourth, and fifth winds having come and gone.

So of course, because nothing in his life can ever go smoothly, the safe house is no longer quite as safe as when he left it. Because when he lands, see, he finds himself in a room with Malfoy and Goyle and Dean Thomas, no longer in cat form, tied to a chair.

Goyle is pointing his wand at Ron, and Malfoy looks as if he wants to, but that he's managed to resist so far.

"I told you," Goyle hisses. "I _told_ you that a Weasley never changes his spots. I _told you_ —"

"Enough," Malfoy says. "Perhaps Weasley didn't know. Not everyone is as allergic to cats as you are, after all. Perhaps our esteemed Aurors planted a shadow on him without his knowledge. Is that what happened, Weasley? Did you know that Thomas has been following you for who knows how long? Did you, like Goyle, notice that the same cat seemed to follow you wherever you went?"

He does raise his wand now, pointing it at Dean's head, and Ron doesn't know what to do. If he was truly the Ron Weasley he's been purporting to be, he should be outraged. He should be ready to curse Dean himself. If he was truly ready to follow Nott tomorrow, when he announced his call to arms, Ron should be willing to accept that there will be casualties of war.

He apparently waits too long to answer, because Malfoy continues, "Give me one good reason that I shouldn't turn you both over to Nott right now."

Dean is staring at Ron, hard, obviously trying to communicate something—probably some selfless rubbish, such as 'the Cause is more important than I am,' and perhaps, Ron thinks, if he's thinking thoughts like that, Malfoy had rubbed off on him more than he'd like to admit.

He should throw Dean to the wolves.

He should, he should, he's going to, he will, but—

"Do you want to go to war?" he asks. "Are you willing to fight for this cause? Are you willing to lay your life down for it—ask your friends to lay their lives down for it—when you weren't even willing to fight for Voldemort in the end?"

He sidesteps the curse that Malfoy shoots at him.

"You know that Nott has been planning this since the beginning. Everything: from my brother's attack on the ministry, to watering the seeds of hatred that led to those shopkeepers killing those Aurors—" His voice catches on the words, the guilt still so close to the surface. "He's let those things happen, he's encouraged them, and he— Tomorrow he's going to take us to war."

Malfoy stares at him for a long moment, then snorts. "Well it bloody well might be better than this shit hole we're living in now."

"You don't mean that," Ron says. He knows Malfoy doesn't. He was at the center of the action in the war against Voldemort; Ron's sure that he wants to return to those days just as little as Ron does.

Malfoy is still eying him, and Goyle looks like he just wishes Malfoy would take Ron down already, or at the very least that he'd take Dean down, but then Malfoy drops his wand.

Ron should stop here. He should offer to take charge of Dean, to get him back to the Ministry without anyone having to be the wiser. A last favor for an old friend. He should stop before he makes this any worse than it already is, but—

But, Malfoy's the closest thing he's had to an ally since he arrived—the only one who's seemed as truly unsure of Nott as Ron himself has been. So, he breaks. He does the one thing he shouldn't do.

"We're going to stop it," Ron says. "We're going to stop it tomorrow. I would suggest not being at the rally tomorrow. If you can keep Torrence and Marietta and the rest away too, that would be good."

From his chair, Dean makes a pained sound. "Ron—"

It's too late, though.

"Tell me why I should believe a word you say," Malfoy says.

"You shouldn't," Ron says, and he lets his shoulders slump. "After all, you've been right this whole time. I am a traitor; just not to the side that everyone else thinks I betrayed."

Malfoy raises his wand again, and for a moment, Ron is sure that a jinx is going to be flying his way, knocking him unconscious. He's sure that he's going to end up in Nott's clutches, and that he won't actually see the showdown the next day.

Then he hears two cracks and when he opens his eyes, he and Dean are alone in the room.

"Ron," Dean says as Ron unties him. "We have to go tell the Inspector. If Malfoy tells Nott—"

He won't, Ron thinks. But what he says is: "It doesn't matter now. With or without me, with or without Malfoy, tomorrow this ends."

* * *

Witches and wizards start gathering in the circle two hours before time Nott has asked them to arrive, and Ron can feel the excitement in the air. The what ifs. The possibility.

Ron is standing on the stage this time, between Holden and DuPré, and he can feel the tension radiating off of them. They, after all, are on the verge of achieving what their parents and Voldemort never could: a free Wizarding state, where they would have free reign.

"We aren't asking for the whole world, just our piece of it," Nott had said the night before. "The rest will follow. You know it will. Because we will use any means at our disposal to ensure our success."

Ron wonders if he'll say the same thing today.

By four o'clock, the circle is full to bursting. Ron doesn't see Malfoy or Goyle – or Torrence, Marietta, or Seamus, or any of the rest of his friends. It's possible he's just missing them—there are too many people here for him to be sure of anything—but.

He hopes.

He _hopes_.

Two minutes after the time that Nott had asked everyone to assemble, he apparates onto the stage. DuPré, Ron thinks, is probably the one responsible for the coordinated flash of light and fire that accompany his appearance.

"My friends," Nott says. "My friends, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining me here this afternoon. This has not been an easy week for any of us: a bitter defeat at the hands of an unworthy opponent; our voices silenced just as we were on the verge of being heard. I have heard from so many of you over these last seven days about your dashed hopes, your dreams that were torn from your grasp, and I want you to know, my friends, that you are not alone. Everything you have been feeling, I have been feeling, too. Everything that you wished for, I wanted _for all of you_. You have been my strength, my rock in these difficult days, and for that, I want to thank you.

"But while I wanted to tell you this, this is not the reason that I asked you to join me here today. No, no, today I asked you here todays so that I could tell you a story. You all know that I like my stories, don't you?"

There's an appreciative laugh from the crowd.

"Today, once again, I'm going to tell you about Percy Weasley. Many of you have heard his story before, yes, but most of you have not heard the full story, the complete story. So listen, my friends, and learn.

"After Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort, Percy Weasley saw what so few of the rest of us could. He saw that instead of moving towards the world without fear that had been promised to us, as soon as Voldemort was gone, we were moving away from it. He saw that we were growing afraid of our own shadows. He saw that we were being forced to take responsibility for actions that were not our own, and that in the name of peace, we were becoming ashamed to be called Wizards.

"My friends, my friends, I am not ashamed to call myself Wizard. None of you are ashamed to call yourselves Wizard. Over one-third of the Wizarding population is not ashamed to call themselves Wizards either, and do you know what that means? It means that we have something to keep fighting for.

"And see, Percy knew that it would be a fight. He knew that our world needed a wake up call, and when he led the attack on the ministry those many months ago, he knew that he was sacrificing himself for the betterment of the world. He told me, before he left that fateful day, that he would be but the first of many who would lay down their lives, their very _souls_ for this cause.

"I wanted to tell him that he was more important, that surely there was another way, but we both knew that he was right. We both _knew_ and I wished him well, and today, my friends, it is my turn to announce that I am ready to lay down my life, _my soul_ for this fight.

"Because, my friends, we may have lost a battle this week, but we have not lost the war. The war is still to be fought. The war is how we will show the world that we will bow down to no one; that we are Wizard, and that we are not ashamed.

"We, my brothers and sisters, are the members of our society with a clear vision of what the future should hold, and so today, my friends, I come before you to ask you a question: Do you think we should be bound by a set of pathetic laws that we do not believe in? Do you think we should be forced to be ashamed? No?"

The response, "NO!" echoes through the square, loudly enough that Ron has to stop a wince.

"No," Nott says firmly. "No. Not when there's a whole world out there for the taking. Not when there is so much more we can accomplish." His eyes have gone wild again, in that way that chills through Ron. "Today, right here, I am asking you to join me in my call to arms. Today I am going to ask you to take what rightfully belongs to us. It will not be easy, and not all of us will survive to see our dreams become reality, but my friends, my brothers and sisters, I truly believe that together we can triumph. Are you with me?"

"YES!"

"Are you with me?"

"YES!"

"Are you willing to lay down your lives for our Cause, just as Percy Weasley laid down his life?"

"YES!"

"Then, my brothers and sisters, I do believe that this is war."

And that, right there, is what Ron has been waiting for.

Ron steps forward, wand gripped tightly in his hand, his Auror credentials slipping out of his sleeves and into his other, and says, "You forgot one part of the story, Nott. My brother was arrested for treason, just like I am arresting you."

As Nott looks at Ron, his face goes maroon with anger, his eyes as wild as Ron has ever seen them, and as he takes a step towards Ron, all Hell breaks loose.

The Inspector, true to his word, has Aurors stationed throughout the crowd, and more at every exit. A cluster converges on the stage, arresting everyone on it as a conspirator towards treason. Ron gets spit on five times, kicked another three, and all he can really do is stand there and take it.

Because that was what the Inspector had said in his office, all those months and years ago: "If we're going to cut the head off the snake, Ron, we need to do it on our terms. We need to make sure that we separate the head so far from the body that it will never grow back."

As he watches Nott kicking, screaming, lashing out at the Aurors surrounding him, as he watches the pandemonium unfold in the circle around them, Ron just hopes that this was far enough.

* * *

And then, as suddenly as it began, it's over.

Ron is standing in the middle of a nearly empty square, watching the Aurors do their jobs and…

And then his mother's there, running across the square, his father and Ginny and the twins just behind. Harry and Hermione even farther back.

"Oh, Ronald," his mum is saying, and when she throws her arms around him, he thinks that nothing has ever felt quite so good. "Oh, _Ronald_ ," she says again, and again. His father's shaking his hand, and Ron thinks he's never looked quite so proud.

Harry and Hermione approach him rather more hesitantly, and—

And see, Ron's been waiting for this, his moment of redemption, where everyone apologizes for ever doubting him. He's been expecting it to taste sweet, so sweet, to feel like relief.

What he's not expecting is for it to feel so awkward. His mother's weeping against his shoulder, the twins are poking at his arms, and all he can do is stare at his best friends.

"I don't know what to say," Harry says finally. "I said some horrible things."

"You did," Ron says, because it's true. Because part of him still feels like Harry should have _known_. "But the Inspector said it was a sign that I was doing a good job."

"And that you did," Remus says, coming up beside Ron.

"Hullo, Inspector," Ron says, and Remus claps him on the back.

"You knew," Molly Weasley says and her face goes tight with anger. "This whole time, you _knew_ that Ron was—" and it's habit that makes Ron look at Harry and Hermione, sharing a look of grateful commiseration that this time, at least, they are not the ones on the wrong side of his mother's tongue lashing. Harry and Hermione are both grinning right back at him, all of them on the same page once again.

Nothing's okay yet, Ron thinks. He's not the same person he was when he apparated into Knockturn Alley all those weeks ago. He's sure that he's entitled to at least one big blow up where he asks them how they could have really thought he'd abandon them like that, but for now.

For now he can get by.

So, with his mum's voice echoing off of the buildings, berating Remus for letting her think that her youngest son had turned _traitor_ , damn you, Ron follows his family, his friends, out of the circle.

Only, as he steps onto one of the paths heading up towards Diagon Alley, he turns around to take one last look at the place he's called home for the last few months, scanning the buildings, the once-again dirty cobblestones. And it's with this last glance that he notices the blond man standing on top of one of the far buildings. He's looking directly at Ron, and for a long moment, Ron looks back.

He nods.

Malfoy nods back.

And with that, Ron turns back towards home.


End file.
